In recent months there has been a visible struggle in the media to come to grips with the leaking, whistle-blowing and hacktivism that has vexed the United States military and the private and government intelligence communities. This response has run the gamut. It has involved attempts to condemn, support, demonize, psychoanalyze and in some cases canonize figures like Aaron Swartz, Jeremy Hammond, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden.
Category: culture
The ‘Columbian Exchange’: How Discovering the Americas Transformed the World
Columbus’ arrival in the Americas sparked the globalization of animals, plants and microbes. A recent book takes a closer look at how items from the New World, such as potatoes, guano and rubber, quickly and radically transformed the rest of the planet.
Why So Many Are Still Missing “Our Maddie”
Six years on, what’s driving the obsession with Madeleine McCann?
Inside the Power of the N.R.A.
It has been a year since the Newtown shootings. Federal gun laws haven???t changed. Here is why.
The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder
Diagnoses have soared as makers of the drugs used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder have found success with a two-decade marketing campaign.
Debunking the ‘Virgin Birth’ Myth
A new study from North Carolina claimed to turn up 45 recent ‘virgin births’ in the U.S. Maybe the Virgin Mary wasn’t the only one?
The Death of a Family, and an American Dream
His younger daughter was the last to go into the ground. Before her had gone her sister, her younger brother and the baby, William. Too small for his own coffin, he lay nestled beside their mother.
After American soil had covered his family???s coffins, Yilin Zhuo had nothing left to stay for. In early December, he abandoned his adopted home, Brooklyn, for the Chinese village he had come from two decades ago.
Palmerston: The island at the end of the earth
It is one of the most isolated island communities in the world. The tiny Pacific island of Palmerston is visited by a supply ship twice a year – at most – and the long and hazardous journey deters all but the most intrepid visitors. What’s more, most of its 62 inhabitants are descended from one man – an Englishman who settled there 150 years ago.
Why the US is addicted to fast cars and street racing
Film and TV star Idris Elba – best known as Stringer Bell from The Wire – has been touring the US as part of a series about the history of underground racing. It turns out the American obsession with speed dates back to the Prohibition era.
One-third of Americans reject evolution, poll shows
One-third of Americans reject the idea of evolution and Republicans have grown more skeptical about it, according to a poll released on Monday.