V for Vendetta is a cinematic masterpiece because it forces discomfort onto its viewers, showing them an extremity of governance that most do not want to see. I have seen the movie now several times and every time, I am rendered speechless and pensive at its end. Based on the comic book series of the same … Read more
All In: The Education of David Petraeus by Paula Broadwell is an interesting look into the career of one of America’s most celebrated military leaders, General David Petraeus. The book mainly covers Petraeus’s service in Afghanistan as the head of the International Security Assistance Force, but it sets itself apart from other straight-forward accounts on … Read more
This spring break, I read a copy of Viktor Fankl’s book Man’s Search For Meaning that I purchased from a homeless man on the street by NYU for $2. My blockmates minus one and I had taken a bus to New York for St. Patrick’s Day weekend, and in an attempt to avoid members of … Read more
V for Vendetta is a cinematic masterpiece because it forces discomfort onto its viewers, showing them an extremity of governance that most do not want to see. I have seen the movie now several times and every time, I am rendered speechless and pensive at its end. Based on the comic book series of the same … Read more
All In: The Education of David Petraeus by Paula Broadwell is an interesting look into the career of one of America’s most celebrated military leaders, General David Petraeus. The book mainly covers Petraeus’s service in Afghanistan as the head of the International Security Assistance Force, but it sets itself apart from other straight-forward accounts on … Read more
Poor Economics by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo is the manifesto of a group of developmental economists attempting to escape the tired foreign aid battles of the past. Where empirical studies have failed to provide answers on what works in poverty reduction, Banerjee and Duflo have turned to a new tool, borrowed from clinical medicine: the … Read more
Steven Pinker’s most recent tome, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined, attempts to document and explain the dramatic decrease in war, murder, and state-sanctioned violence since the dawn of civilization. He examines several distinct phenomena spanning over millennia, ranging from the advent of the state, to the near extinction of interstate … Read more
“I went there behind the crude but serious belief that you had to be able to look at anything, serious because I acted on it and went, crude because I didn’t know, it took the war to teach it, that you were as responsible for everything you saw as you were for everything you did.” … Read more
In November 2011, the International Atomic Energy Association released a report with compelling evidence that Iran has, “carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear device.” A veritable explosion of frenetic media coverage, heated political rhetoric, and escalating international pressure ensued, given that a nuclear Iran would have serious ramifications for security in … Read more
Rick Santorum’s February surge underscores what many have been saying all along: Republican voters are unwilling to accept Mitt Romney as their nominee. While Romney has considerable political experience and remains the strongest threat to President Obama this fall, he has failed to charm the base. Romney’s image is at the core of this problem: … Read more