Scott Gration is an embarrassment. As Barack Obama's special envoy to Sudan, Gration has a dual mission: to help win justice and peace for the nearly three million Darfuris who currently live in camps after being subjected to genocide by Sudan's government; and to prevent that same odious government from initiating another slaughter in southern Sudan, where a 2005 peace agreement is looking more tenuous by the day.
Over a decade ago, I trundled my good-natured family across miles of southern Switzerland to see every building I could by Peter Zumthor, who is this year's winner of the Pritzker Prize. Then as now, most of Zumthor's work was off the beaten track, not only literally but metaphorically, little known to the general public although admired by professionals. What drew me to make the trek to his work was what, from pictures, appeared to be its conceptual rigor, its unabashed monumentality, and an attention to detail so fanatical that every threshold, corner, and joint seemed to become an opportunity to rethink the way hands make buildings.
Not murder in the literal sense, of course, though in this case the metaphor is less distant than one would prefer. As noted earlier this month, Texas Governor Perry abruptly fired the chairman and two members of the Texas Forensic Science Commission investigating the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham--a man who was almost certainly innocent--just days before the commission was scheduled to hear expert testimony that the lethal arson for which Willingham was put to death under Perry's watch was no arson at all.
Now the fired chairman, Samuel Bassett, tells the Chicago Tribune that, prior to his firing, he felt "pressure" from the governor's office regarding the Willingham case:
According to Bassett, the governor's attorneys questioned the cost of the inquiry and asked why a fire scientist from Texas could not be hired to examine the case instead of the expert from Maryland that the panel ultimately settled on. Following the meeting, a staffer from the general counsel's office began to attend the commission's meetings, Bassett said...
Every time it seems that Texas's application of the death penalty cannot become a greater moral disgrace, officials in the state find a way to outdo themselves. A month ago, I linked to David Grann's exceptional profile of Cameron Todd Willingham--a man put to death in Texas who was almost certainly innocent--and less than two weeks ago, I noted the case of Charles Dean Hood, whose death sentence appeal to the state's highest court was rejected despite proof that the prosecuting attorney and the judge overseeing his case had a long-time (though only recently disclosed) sexual relationship.
Last week brought an update to Grann's story:
[On Wednesday,] the Republican governor of Texas, Rick Perry, abruptly dismissed the chairman and two members of the Texas Forensic Science Commission investigating the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, which I wrote about last month in The New Yorker. The move came two days before the commission was scheduled to hear crucial evidence that Willingham was put to death, in 2004, based on arson theories that have since been disproven by modern science. The new chairman appointed by Perry promptly postponed Friday’s hearing, when the noted fire scientist Craig Beyler was supposed to testify regarding his findings.
'One of the things that will happen if we pass this [health care reform] bill is that you will have more and more health care provided ... by community-based clinics or comprehensive health centers that have salaried professionals, including doctors. ... That's what you have at the Mayo Clinic." If you've been following the health care debate over the last few weeks, then you've heard President Obama say something like this a dozen times.
How do you make a sequel to a blockbuster when the star of your film declines to return for a second go-round? I refer, of course, to Tom Hanks’s hairdo in The Da Vinci Code.
In 2007, John Bolton wrote that Republicans had achieved "the end of arms control." He was referring to a string of conservative successes, sta
COLUMBUS, OHIO--Less than a week before Election Day, the buzz in Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner’s office is about a Halloween mask. On Thursday morning, The Other Paper, a local news and entertainment weekly, had published a cover plastered with a picture of Brunner’s face, complete with dotted lines where readers could cut it out to wear for the holiday.
COLUMBUS, OHIO--Like many in DC, New York, and other big cities, I've been fascinated by the proliferation of Obama gear on the streets. T-shirts, hats, bags, scarves--you name it, and somebody's selling it. A friend working for the Obama team in Chicago said he and others have received loads of t-shirt design submissions--most of which were politely rejected for being a tad on the gaudy side.
David Kusnet was chief speechwriter for former President Bill Clinton from 1992 through 1994. He is the author of Love the Work, Hate the Job: Why America's Best Workers Are Unhappier than Ever.
From a distance, it might seem that environmentalists should be crestfallen that the 2008 Climate Security Act--shorthanded as Lieberman-Warner after its lead sponsors in the Senate--went down in flames on the Senate floor on Friday. The bill, which would cap fossil fuel emissions in the United States above a certain level and ask industry to pay more for any excesses, was easily the most aggressive and comprehensive environmental reform ever to hit Congress. But the bipartisan plan to cut U.S.
