OUPblog

Nine reasons I love John Williams [playlist]

By Tim Greiving
Read More
Built on trust: the rigorous review process behind Oxford Law Pro’s Content [infographic]
Read More
Prague: a playlist from the heart of Europe

By Cynthia Paces
Read More

The CIA Leak Case: A Historical Object Lesson

In studying two centuries of Washington reporting, I found only one instance where journalists came forward to name their anonymous sources. It occurred in 1846 after the Washington Daily Times (no relation to the current paper) printed sensational allegations that Whigs were plotting with the British minister to bring about a settlement of the Oregon boundary dispute. When the Senate investigated the charges, the paper’s editor and publisher voluntarily divulged the sources of the story: a naval officer, a Senate doorkeeper, several lobbyists, and a few other journalists. Since those sources had everything to lose and nothing to gain by corroborating the Times’ allegations, every witness, under oath, denied knowledge of a plot. The committee branded the story “utterly and entirely false,” and banned anyone from the newspaper from the Senate galleries. The Washington Daily Times promptly went out of business, creating an object lesson that the rest of the press corps took very much to heart.

Qualifications Do Matter

Despite the tremendous importance of politics in Supreme Court nominations, the single most important determinant of a successful confirmation is the qualifications of the nominee. We have measured the qualifications of all nominees since Hugo Black (1937) by content analyzing newspaper editorials from leading newspapers at the time of their nominations [see table below]. By this standard, Miers falls near the bottom of the stack. Thus, her withdrawal is not surprising.

Leak Inquiry – Where is the crime?

With the “leak inquiry” grand jury adjouned for the day, it’s time for a breather. Gary Hart offers a fresh perspective in a piece in Tuesday’s Denver Post. Responding to the oft-repeated conservative defense that is, essentially, ‘no harm, no foul,’ Hart offers some historical context to the scene: The federal statute making it a […]

Pakistan Earthquake Relief – “Blog Quake Day”

Some bloggers have declared today to be “Blog Quake Day” and are calling for online donations to agencies assisting the relief effort in Pakistan. Oxfam declared today that “rich countries” are “failing to respond generously to the UN South Asian Earthquake appeal.” In related news, Anatol Lieven, author of America Right or Wrong, wrote a […]

On the Press

“…one of their clearest duties is to keep a wary eye on the gentlemen who operate this great nation, and only too often slip into the assumption that they own it.” — H.L. Mencken

NOAD on Boing-Boing

That New Yorker article on the use of phony words to protect a dictionary’s copyright got some belated play on the seminal weblog Boing-Boing today. The article focuses on the search for the phony word in the New Oxford American Dictionary, 2nd Edition (NOAD). Erin McKean, the editor-in-chief of NOAD, whimsically likens a lexicographer’s copyright […]

Stiglitz reviews ‘Moral Consequences of Economic Growth’

Joseph Stiglitz: As the income distribution becomes increasingly skewed, with an increasing share of the wealth and income in the hands of those at the top, the median falls further and further below the mean. That is why, even as per capita GDP has been increasing in the United States, U.S. median household income has actually been falling.

Undercover Economist on FT.com

The Financial Times has published a great excerpt of the forthcoming book from Tim Harford, The Undercover Economist. Here is a representative graph from the excerpt and the book that Steven Levitt called “required reading”: Supermarkets will often produce an own-brand “value” range, displaying crude designs that don’t vary whether the product is lemonade or […]

Quality Matters in SCOTUS nominations, but will it for Harriet Miers?

President Bush’s nomination of Harriet E. Miers to the Supreme Court has politicians and pundits questioning her qualifications for the job. But in the hyper-partisan world of Supreme Court nominations, do qualifications really matter? The answer—which may surprise those who claim the appointment process is a “mess,” “badly broken,” and “unpredictable”—is absolutely.

Reynolds responds to Coetzee in NYROB

David S. Reynolds, author of Walt Whitman in the Lives and Legacies series, responded to J.M. Coetzee in the “Letters” section of the New York Review of Books this week: J.M. Coetzee concludes his review of my new book Walt Whitman [NYR, September 22] with what is evidently meant as a criticism. He writes, “Reynolds’s […]

More from Philip Pullman

Philip Pullman took a breather from the ‘Narnia-gate’ media frenzy yesterday to respond to the other big literature-goes-to-Hollywood story of last week: Paradise Lost will be coming to a theatre near you in 2007! “There have been rumours about a film of Paradise Lost for a long time,” Pullman says. “There was even talk of […]

Harford values life

In Friday’s ‘Dear Economist’ column for the Financial Times, Tim Harford bravely answered this puzzler from one of his loyal readers: Is the value of a British person’s life greater than the value of an Iraqi person’s life? And, speaking of bravery, check out Harford’s reaction to this terrible situation – from the ‘what would […]

Response to InsureBlog

– by Jill Quadagno Hank at Insureblog has written a thought-provoking review of my book, One Nation, Uninsured. I appreciate his willingness to take on this task and welcome the opportunity to engage in a debate about how we finance health care in this country. First, let’s consider Hank’s claim that I consider our current […]

More Thomas Schelling

Fred Kaplan over at Slate.com gave Nobel laureate Thomas Schelling quite a dust-up earlier this week, criticizing Schelling for the “crucial role he played in formulating the strategies of “controlled escalation” and “punitive bombing” that plunged our country into the war in Vietnam.” Tim Harford, who sang Schelling’s praises earlier this week, has responded today […]

Milton on the Silver Screen?

I wonder what Milton would say to the news today that Paradise Lost is going to Hollywood. For those of you who want to experience the original before the movie comes out, Philip Pullman wrote the introduction to our most recent edition. We posted a short excerpt from Pullman’s introduction HERE. LINK to article (via […]

The New American Militarism

The left must fight imperialism in the name of patriotism. Barring a revolutionary and highly unlikely transformation of American mass culture, any political party that wishes to win majority support will have to demonstrate its commitment to the defence of the country. The Bush administration has used the accusation of weakness in security policy to undermine its opponents, and then used this advantage to pursue reckless strategies that have themselves drastically weakened the US. The left needs to heed Bacevich and draw up a tough, realistic and convincing alternative. It will also have to demonstrate its identification with the respectable aspects of military culture. The Bush administration and the US establishment in general may have grossly mismanaged the threats facing us, but the threats are real, and some at least may well need at some stage to be addressed by military force. And any effective military force also requires the backing of a distinctive military ethic embracing loyalty, discipline and a capacity for both sacrifice and ruthlessness.