Best of the Moment
society-law-religion
middle-east
Kennan Malik | Guardian | 17 March 2010
Diversity means a freer, messier society with frictions and fault-lines. Multiculturalism means trying to manage away conflicts, give each group privileged space. First is better
Andrew O'Hagan | LRB | 17 March 2010
Jon Venables was ten when he killed James Bulger, aged two, in 1993. At 27 he is still a national hate figure, broken down and back in prison. Read this and weep
Jeffrey Toobin | New Yorker | 15 March 2010
Landmark profile of John Paul Stevens, 90-year-old Supreme Court justice, soon to retire. Republican appointee, liberal icon, legal realist
Katha Pollitt | Democracy | Spring 2010
American liberalism reluctant to fight for women's issues. At most, polite sympathy. Of early goals, abortion now legal but contested, childcare scarce, only equal opportunity broadly accepted
Robert Barro et al | February 2010
Academic paper. "Our goal is to apply social-science reasoning to understand the Church’s choices on numbers and characteristics of saints" (PDF)
Nigel Hawkes | Independent | 13 March 2010
Aberdeen is most sleep-deprived city in Britain, Bristol unhealthiest, London smelliest. Or so this week's newspapers say. How cheap opinion polls manufacture bogus statistics that news editors love
Rusty McMann | Salon | 11 March 2010
Paunchy 40-something male explains how he makes a living as a Las Vegas prostitute. Nicely done, risqué but not too rude. And not at all the sort of thing one gets to read every day
Jonathan Rauch | Atlantic | April 2010
Beautifully written, terribly sad memoir of looking after 80-year-old father dying from multiple system atrophy. "He could not cope, and I could not cope"
Issandr El Amrani | Arabist | 10 March 2010
Obituary of Egypt's top Muslim cleric, head of al-Azhar university and mosque. Allowed mortgages, game shows. Tried to compromise between fundamentalists and modernisers, angered both.
Laurie Goodstein | NYT | 6 March 2010
Defectors turn on church, say they were beaten, pressured to have abortions, had passports taken, were forced to work without sleep on little pay—and billed thousands of dollars when they left