New to World Politics Review Jan. 18 is Shades of Justice: Scenes of Law, Order and Reality in Iraq, by Neil Shea, who has also covered the war in Iraq for National Geographic magazine. His reporting from Iraq for the magazine puts readers in the midst of the war in a way that far surpasses the average news article. Below are links to some of it, for those interesting in reading (and hearing) more of Shea’s work. His story “The Heroes and the Healing: Military Medicine From the Front Lines to the Home Front,” with photos by Jim Nachtwey, contains [...]
The above is good advice not only because skepticism is an intellectual virtue, but also because, if you read widely enough, it’s impossible to believe everything you read without getting tangled in a web of contradictions. “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function,” F. Scott Fitzgerald reportedly said. That may be the case, but holding as true and valid two contradictory ideas at the same time is another matter. To help you avoid this pitfall, we highlight two recent [...]
From USA Today: WASHINGTON — The CIA plans to increase its use of “open sources” such as newspapers and blogs and to outsource more software development to commercial contractors under a 22-point strategy being put in place. The CIA’s “Strategic Intent,” distributed to agency employees in December and posted on its public website this month, stresses improved flexibility and fewer barriers between departments. It contains several corporate-style flourishes, including ongoing employee input, an advisory board drawn from business and academia and “action teams” assigned to implement the plan. In a speech to CIA workers at the agency’s Langley, Va., headquarters [...]
