“Coetzee doesn’t write realism: His novels cannot be pinned down to a history, be it apartheid South Africa or Bush’s increasingly authoritarian America. Yet it’s hard to believe that the Nobel committee, in coming to its judgment, wasn’t moved by the way Coetzee’s most astute writing speaks to this moment. A moment when an ill-conceived campaign against an ill-defined enemy risks creating in its wake a culture of surveillance, military hubris, anonymous internment, torture, more violence and counter-violence, and, among America’s citizenry, an immobilizing paranoia.” – Rob Nixon, in the ever-more leftward Slate.
THE MEANING OF LIFE: Yes – and all on a tv webpage. The irrepressibly astute Bob Wright launches an experiment of sorts. Listen to Steven Pinker talk about … his hair. And other things.
THE TRIPPI REVOLUTION: Noam Scheiber looks at what’s really making the Dean campaign take off.
The Dish 