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Topic: Politics and Public Issues

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THE BUBBLE OF AMERICAN SUPREMACY

A prominent financier argues that the heedless assertion of American power in the world resembles a financial bubble—and the moment of truth may be here
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
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in MP3
Author
George Soros
Publication
2004 The Atlantic Monthly
Read by
Grover Gardner
Length
18 minutes

TO KILL OR NOT TO KILL

Coming to terms with capital punishment.
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
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in MP3
Author
Scott Turow
Publication
2002 The New Yorker
Read by
Gail Farley
Length
38 minutes

THE PEOPLE'S PREACHER

Al Sharpton would rather walk naked than wear your wretched dress.
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
Play
in MP3
Author
Elizabeth Kolbert
Publication
2002 The New Yorker
Read by
Michael Emlaw
Length
65 minutes

THE GROWING NUCLEAR DANGER

Exploring potential threats.
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
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in MP3
Author
Steven Weinberg
Publication
2002 The NY Review of Books
Read by
John Caraher
Length
24 minutes

SOUND AND FURY

The great flood myth and more.
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
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in MP3
Author
Garret Keizer
Publication
2002 Harper's Magazine
Read by
Jim Weyman
Length
43 minutes

SISTER ACT

Did Betty Freidan go wrong, or did feminism?
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
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in MP3
Author
Daphne Merkin
Publication
2002 The New Yorker
Read by
Mary Roth
Length
22 minutes

SCIENCE AND SELF-GOVERNMENT

Beyond Therapy is a response to what is, in a sense, only the latest version of that same crisis, the ongoing challenge of being a self-governing people.
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
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in MP3
Author
Wilfred M. McClay
Publication
2004 The New Atlantis
Read by
Roxy Firestone
Length
49 minutes

PAPER TIGER

Daniel Ellsberg's war.
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
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in MP3
Author
Nicholas Lemann
Publication
2002 The New Yorker
Read by
Carol Batty
Length
21 minutes

MORALITY AND FOREIGN POLICY

Taking many factors into account.
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
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in MP3
Author
George F. Kennan
Publication
1986
Read by
Steven Schiff
Length
38 minutes

FIVE AND A HALF UTOPIAS

Despite its dismal record, the utopian impulse is by no means extinct.
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
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in MP3
Author
Steven Weinberg
Publication
2000 The Atlantic Monthly
Read by
Gail Farley
Length
37 minutes

DRAMATURGY OF DEATH

Nietzsche denied that capital punishment ever arose from a single or consistent theory of its intent or effect.
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
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in MP3
Author
Wills
Publication
2001 The NY Review of Books
Read by
Steve Easter
Length
36 minutes

DIRTY LAUNDRY

In a town of strip malls, the police run amok.
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
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in MP3
Author
Mark Singer
Publication
2001 The New Yorker
Read by
Kathleen Starling
Length
28 minutes

CLINTON'S STRONG DEFENSE LEGACY

Topic
Politics and Public Issues
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in MP3
Author
Michael O'Hanlon
Publication
2003 Foreign Affairs
Read by
Robert Miller
Length
21 minutes

A TALE OF TWO SECRETARIES

The dilemmas of U.S. defense policy today reflect more than individual foibles and the difficulty of transforming a giant, often dysfunctional bureaucracy.
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
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in MP3
Author
Eliot A. Cohen
Publication
2002 Foreign Affairs
Read by
Richard Wilson
Length
33 minutes

A NASTY BUSINESS

Gathering "good intelligence" against terrorists is an inherently brutish enterprise, involving methods a civics class might not condone. Should we care?
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
Play
in MP3
Author
Bruce Hoffman
Publication
2002 The Atlantic Monthly
Read by
Richard Wilson
Length
23 minutes

BAD COPS

Rafael Perez's testimony on police misconduct ignited the biggest scandal in the history of the L.A.P.D. Is it the real story?
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
Play
in MP3
Author
Peter J. Boyer
Publication
2001 The New Yorker
Read by
Michael Emlaw
Length
88 minutes

CONNECTING THE DOTS

The paradoxes of intelligence reforms
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
Play
in MP3
Author
Malcolm Gladwell
Publication
2002 The New Yorker
Read by
Steven Schiff
Length
35 minutes

DOG TROUBLE

What can you do when your dog has gone wrong?
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
Play
in MP3
Author
Cathleen Schine
Publication
2004 The New Yorker
Read by
Roxy Firestone
Length
35 minutes

EXAMINED LIFE

What Stanley H. Kaplan taught us about the SAT.
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
Play
in MP3
Author
Malcolm Gladwell
Publication
2002 The New Yorker
Read by
Kathleen Sullivan
Length
35 minutes

GOVERNING THE INTERNET

Engaging Government, Business and Nonprofits
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
Play
in MP3
Author
Zoe Baird
Publication
2002 Foreign Affairs
Read by
Linda Wilkins
Length
20 minutes

LIGHTNING ROD

A review of Hillary Rodham Clinton's Living History
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
Play
in MP3
Author
Wills
Publication
2003
Read by
Robert Miller
Length
32 minutes

MY WAY

Bowling Alone and the American community.
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
Play
in MP3
Author
Alan Ryan
Publication
2000
Read by
Dean Melmoth
Length
36 minutes

PAYDAY

Everybody's getting rich, except the city
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
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in MP3
Author
Jeffrey Toobin
Publication
2003 The New Yorker
Read by
Adele Roy
Length
31 minutes

SCHOOL FOR SURVIVAL

Just how vulnerable is a reporter covering a war?
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
Play
in MP3
Author
Elizabeth Rubin
Publication
1999 The New Yorker
Read by
Mary Beth Carroll
Length
22 minutes

SHOOT TO KILL

In the post-Columbine world, police departments all over America are adopting new, no-nonsense SWAT-team tactics.
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
Play
in MP3
Author
Harper
Publication
2000 The Atlantic Monthly
Read by
Linda Wilkins
Length
18 minutes

SINGLE MOTHERS AND WELFARE

For the first time since the Great Depression, large numbers of families are homeless. Recent welfare revisions will put even more women and children on the streets.
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
Play
in MP3
Author
Ellen L. Bassuk, Angela Browne and John C. Buckner
Publication
1996 Scientific American
Read by
Melissa Stewart
Length
26 minutes

THE LOYAL OPPOSITION

Garry Wills defends his faith.
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
Play
in MP3
Author
Joan Acocella
Publication
2002 The New Yorker
Read by
Kathleen Starling
Length
22 minutes

THE PRISONER

On August 20th, 2003, Kathy Boudin, a former member of the Weather Underground who was sentenced to twenty years to life in prison for her part in an armored-car robbery in which three men were killed, was granted parole, over the protests of the victims' families.
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
Play
in MP3
Author
Elizabeth Kolbert
Publication
2003 The New Yorker
Read by
Melissa Stewart
Length
56 minutes

THE WORLD BANK'S MISSION CREEP

Critics regularly fault the World Bank for overlooking issues such as the environment and the role of civil society as it pursues its development agenda. In fact, the bank has been adding tasks to its mandate for years.
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
Play
in MP3
Author
Jessica Einhorn
Publication
2001 Foreign Affairs
Read by
Richard Wilson
Length
33 minutes

BIG BIRD FLIES RIGHT

How Republicans learned to love PBS.
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
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in MP3
Author
Ken Auletta
Publication
2004 The New Yorker
Read by
Length
33 minutes

DIVIDED WE SPRAWL

A call for a reinvention of the American city and suburb that would exploit the infrastructure of the one and mitigate the 'frantic privacy' of the other.
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
Play
in MP3
Publication
1999 The Atlantic Monthly
Read by
Richard Wilson
Length
32 minutes

GETTING OVER IT

The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit put the war behind him. Why can't we?
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
Play
in MP3
Author
Malcolm Gladwell
Publication
2004 The New Yorker
Read by
David Henry
Length
25 minutes

THE MOST DANGEROUS INSTITUTION

For nearly a hundred years, the FBI has been fighting for America with its discipline and professionalism often at odds with its shadowy, extralegal tactics.
Topic
Politics and Public Issues
Play
in MP3
Publication
2002 American Heritage
Read by
Steven Schiff
Length
40 minutes