July 5, 2012

From Democracy Now!

Four years after the 2008 economic crisis, not a single top Wall Street executive has gone to jail. “These executives knew that they could take these huge risks and even break laws and pay no real price, and that’s what happened,” says Glenn Greenwald, author of “With Liberty and Justice For Some: How the Law is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful,” and a blogger for Salon. “It’s not just a travesty of justice that we haven’t punished them for past transgressions. The real danger is that we’re continuing to send the signal to the world’s most powerful financial actors that they don’t have any fear of criminal accountability when they commit these obvious crimes.”

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Filed under: Glenn Greenwald Obama economic crisis economy justice banks book interview Democracy Now! accountability crime CEOs wallstreet ows occupywallstreet 
June 4, 2012

The Big Lebowski

Evoking his character in 1998’s “The Big Lebowski,” Jeff Bridges will co-write a book of Zen teachings, to be published later this year. “The Dude and the Zen Master,” co-written by Bridges (the Dude) and Bernie Glassman (the Zen Master), promises to be a set of casual exchanges on life, film and trying to do good.

More here.

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(Notes: 1)
  
Filed under: The Big Lebowski Jeff Bridges buddhism zen the dude book books good buddha Bernie Glassman 
May 29, 2012


the 27-story, 570-foot-tall, 400,000-square-foot mansion

Words cannot express the absurdity of this.

For a better, or at least more accurate picture of Mumbai read Kathrine Boo’s recent Behind to Beautiful Forevers

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Filed under: capitalism Mumbai absurd self-aggrandizement self-important ignorant India wealth poverty book Kathrine Boo Behind the Beautiful Forevers Nita Ambani 
May 16, 2012
The wrong Carlos: how Texas sent an innocent man to his death

A few years ago, Antonin Scalia, one of the nine justices on the US supreme court, made a bold statement. There has not been, he said, “a single case – not one – in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred … the innocent’s name would be shouted from the rooftops.”

Scalia may have to eat his words. It is now clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit, and his name – Carlos DeLuna – is being shouted from the rooftops of the Columbia Human Rights Law Review. The book sets out in precise and shocking detail how an innocent man was sent to his death on 8 December 1989, courtesy of the state ofTexas. 

(Source: abbyjean)

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(Notes: 37)
  
Filed under: death penalty wrongful conviction Texas Supreme Court Antonin Scalia US injustice execution death book 
April 28, 2012

As Britain desperately tries to rescue some pride from its imminent withdrawal from Afghanistan, the best-case scenario may be that we leave behind a less stable and more corrupt version of Pakistan. The vision of that country painted by Ahmed Rashid, one of the leading analysts of the “Af-Pak” relationship, is not an encouraging one. “Pakistan is now considered the most fragile place in the world… It is the most unstable country and the most vulnerable to terrorist violence, political change or economic collapse,” he writes in his latest book, Pakistan on the Brink.

From a review written by Duncan Gardham of “Pakistan on the Brink” by Ahmed Rashid

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Filed under: Pakistan Afghanistan political politics insecurity instability book review terrorism violence economic collapse vulnerability 
May 19, 2010
Wonderful book. Well written and well read. Anything that disrupts commonly held views, as this book does, is important and well worth exploring. I’m thinking I’ll revisit my markings in it over the next few weeks and will post some excerpts if the mood strikes me.

Wonderful book. Well written and well read. Anything that disrupts commonly held views, as this book does, is important and well worth exploring.

I’m thinking I’ll revisit my markings in it over the next few weeks and will post some excerpts if the mood strikes me.

1:19pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZBXRbyaakxX
Filed under: Howard Zinn history people working class United States book review critical