Best of the Moment
society-law-religion
north-america
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
Jeremy Clarkson | London Times | 7 March 2010
Tirade against British nanny state, sparked by new plan to regulate dog ownership more tightly. Dog-owners to be tested for competence, dogs required to carry GPS monitoring and insurance
Anonymous | Economist | 4 March 2010
Ultrasound, abortion, small families mean more boys, fewer girls in developing world. Socially dangerous. Instead, increase women's economic value with more education, less discrimination
Detroitblogger John | Metro Times | 17 February 2010
Superb local reporting from fringe Detroit neighbourhood struggling to keep drug dealers, thieves at bay. Police don't respond, houses fall vacant, dogs are poisoned
Christopher Hitchens | Vanity Fair | April 2010
Good idea, unevenly realised. Biblical commandments commented and rebalanced. First three can go, making room for plenty of newer man-made horrors that demand to be outlawed
Elizabeth Green | NYT Magazine | 2 March 2010
Gripping treatment of seemingly dull-but-important subject: teacher training. Centres on researcher who spent five years studying great teachers, compiled taxonomy of their tradecraft
Matt Labash | Weekly Standard | 1 March 2010
Report from post-earthquake Haiti centering on Father Rick Frechette, an American pastor helping with the clear-up. Starts shakily, but picks up speed when action reaches Port-au-Prince
Christine Smallwood | Nation | 25 February 2010
Disgust underpins racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, homophobia. But it's an unreliable emotion, often a form of self-hatred, certainly not an acceptable basis for law or public behaviour
Michael Bobelian | Washington Monthly | March 2010
DNA tests can exonerate the innocent. They can also lead to wrongful convictions. The larger the database against which you match a DNA sample, the more likely a false positive becomes