Giraffe Edition 32
Gangster’s Guide To Upward Mobility
Malcolm Gladwell | New Yorker | 4th August 2014
Discussion of Alice Goffman's On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City; though the first few paragraphs are about an anthropological study of the American Mafia in the 1960s. The argument here, if I read it correctly, is that careless old-fashioned policing used to give criminal families a chance to go straight; efficient modern policing now traps criminals, and their children, in permanent criminality (5,000 words)
Britain Enters The War
David Hargreaves | The Browser Looks Back | 4th August 2014
First in a series of short weekly essays charting the course of the Great War; from our new sister publication, The Browser Looks Back (http://back.thebrowser.com) . Each day The Browser Looks Back posts news and comment from the newspapers and magazines of 1914, beginning today with The Times's editorial (http://back.thebrowser.com/#fp-article) on Britain's entry into war against Germany. Experience all the excitement of the Great War with none of the inconveniences (900 words)
Is Genocide Right For You?
Aaron Bady | New Inquiry | 3rd August 2014
Satire. "Remember, while genocide is not right for all situations, and must be used responsibly, it can be effective in nation-building, establishing a political power-base, and incorporating the military industrial complex into every aspect of a secure economic total future. If you are not authorized to conduct a genocide yourself, it may be possible to contract an authorized agent to conduct genocide for you" (378 words)
Reflections On Violence
Hannah Arendt | New York Review Of Books | 27th February 1969
Prescient notes on the technology of warfare and the political history of violence, the main thrust of which is to deplore the renewed glorification of violence by the left-wing would-be revolutionaries of the late 1960s. "The distinction between violent and non-violent action is that the former is exclusively bent upon the destruction of the old and the latter chiefly concerned with the establishment of something new" (13,700 words)
How To Ruin A Country: Kaiser Bill
Philip Mansel | Spectator | 3rd August 2014
Review of the third huge volume of John Röhl’s "awe-inspiring biography" of Kaiser Wilhelm II, who was "anachronistic, racist and militaristic even by the standards of his day". He believed a "final struggle between Germans and Slavdom" was inevitable. He got his war in 1914, but only because other European leaders were at least as belligerent. Afterwards, in old age, he urged the Nazis to exterminate Jews (1,350 words)
Video of the day: Banksy — Compilation
What to expect: Anthology of street-artist's murals
Thought for the day
"It’s not a lie. It’s a gift for fiction"
— David Mamet