What Obama lost in this campaign
Even with victory, Obama missed the chance to engineer a realignment of the US electorate
Rendition and torture: how it happened
Everyone knows by now that the US and UK tortured captives. That should still shock us
New York Times op-ed on Syria is wrong about the Obama doctrine
How not to make the case for US intervention in Syria
In a first, a new dictionary of ancient Egyptian colloquial
The language was on the Rosetta Stone but the dictionary is only now being published
In Paris, the Olympics are all about judo
Jingoism is bad enough but someone else’s jingoism is truly excruciating
The Syrian gun market as horoscope
New York Times reporter C. J. Chivers says weapons are expensive so bad things lie ahead
Arafat poisoned, world fails to notice
Al Jazeera asks: was Arafat murdered using radioactive polonium, like Russian dissident Litvinenko?
Fast and Furious ‘scandal’ is a GOP hatchet job
The gun lobby lambasts the Obama administration for not seizing enough guns. An election year irony
Zadie Smith on libraries and the state of the state
How did something as fine and useful as a public library become an ideological issue?
Did Bashar al-Assad pay for this photo?
In 2008, French President Nicolas Sarkozy brought Bashar al-Assad in from the cold. Why?
What made Khaled Saeed a symbol?
All humans are imperfect but imperfect symbols don’t work: they get vilified for political purposes
Art = money, surprise!
The Barnes Foundation and a Gerhard Richter show make an old point about art and money in a new way
Horst Faas: the man who shot the Vietnam War
Many of the photos we know from the Vietnam War are due to Horst Faas, even ones he didn’t shoot
What did Nixon really know about Watergate?
Ron Rosenbaum points out Nixon ran the cover up but we still don’t know if he ordered the burglary
Kony2012, the final indignity
What if you throw a party for one hundred million people and no one comes?
Mad Men is populated by Richard Nixon’s silent majority
When it comes to race, has Mad Men left the biggest lie until last?
What Steve Jobs saw in 1985
The most compelling reason to buy a home computer 27 years ago? The internet.
Why the global warming skeptics are skeptical
It is politics, not science. Global warming skeptics fear opening the door to government regulation
Why is it so hard to get word out of Syria?
Homs is bad enough but what is happening right now in Aleppo, in Suweida, in Deir ez-Zur?
The New York Times opens up its photo morgue
The coolest thing? The backs of the prints. The most surprising? The site is on Tumblr
Did the Renaissance invent individuality in portraiture?
Andrew Butterfield says yes; the Fayum portraits suggest no
Romney has not gotten a job in a decade
It is a good thing Romney is rich because he is basically unemployable
Ghost of Judith Miller returns to the NY Times
In the form of Ronen Bergman, whose cover story on Israel attacking Iran reads as propaganda
Ahmed Basiony and the cost of revolution
The protesters in Tahrir Square preached non-violence, but the Mubarak regime did not