Daniel Aaron Lazar

Interview with Subcomandante Marcos

Dan Lazar — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 10:54:45 +0000

Subcomandante Marcos is the spokesperson for the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), a Mexican rebel movement. In January 1994, he led an army of Mayan farmers into the eastern parts of the Mexican state of Chiapas in protest of the Mexican government’s treatment of indigenous peoples.

Marcos is an author, political poet, adroit humorist, and outspoken opponent of capitalism and neo-liberalism. Marcos has advocated having the Mexican constitution amended to recognize the rights of the country’s indigenous inhabitants. The internationally known guerrillero has been described as a “new” and “postmodern” Che Guevara.

Here is a two part interview 60 Minutes interview with Marcos from 1994:

1994 *-60 Minutes- SUBCOMANDANTE MARCOS* part#1of2

1994 *-60 Minutes- SUBCOMANDANTE MARCOS* part#2of2

Tears of Sichuan Province

Dan Lazar — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 10:47:35 +0000

This HBO documentary film was nominated for best documentary film in the 2010 Oscars. It is the story of a tragic (70,000 dead) earthquake in Sichuan province in 2008 and the reactions of the Chinese citizens. The film is, among other things, a statement about Chinese political culture.

Here is the trailer

Video Interview of Shell’s Country Chair in Nigeria

Dan Lazar — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 10:41:36 +0000

Watch a video of Basil Omiyi, Shell’s Country Chair in Nigeria, who was at the United Nations in New York attending a pan-African investment round-table. He spoke to Paolo Black about some of the challenges facing Nigeria and Shell’s operations there.

Courtesy of Shell Worldwide Inc. Thank you Shell. Ugh.

Devolution: Wales points the way

Dan Lazar — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 10:39:41 +0000

Pessimists about politics might consider the following facts. Thirty one years ago yesterday, St David’s Day 1979, Welsh voters humiliatingly rejected the Callaghan government’s Wales devolution act in a referendum by 79.8% to 20.2%. Nearly two decades on, however, Welsh voters narrowly supported the Blair government’s Wales devolution act in a new referendum by 50.3% to 49.7%. Today, according to a St Davids Day BBC Wales/ICM poll, only 13% of Welsh voters now want to see the Welsh assembly abolished, while only 18% are satisfied with the limited powers conferred on the assembly in 1998. Most Welsh people would like to see not less or no devolution – but more. By 56% to 35% they say they would vote for an assembly with full legislative powers in a referendum now scheduled for next year.

Read on at the Guardian

Explaining Gordon Brown’s enthusiasm for electoral reform

Dan Lazar — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 10:38:22 +0000

Mr Brown announced that the House of Commons would vote next week on legislation mandating a referendum, to be held by October 2011, on switching from the first-past-the-post system (FPTP) hitherto used in Westminster elections to the “alternative vote” method (AV) used in Australia.

Bagehot Explains

Beyond the Kremlin’s Reach: Tatarstan is stable, but the republics of the north Caucasus are aflame. Why?

Dan Lazar — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 10:36:48 +0000

In contrast, the transfer of power in Dagestan, a Muslim republic in the north Caucasus, has been accompanied by murder, explosions and civil strife. The region has seen a surge in home-grown Islamic fundamentalism, increasing lawlessness among the police and security services and feuding between local clans.

Mr Medvedev is expected to appoint a new president for Dagestan in February, but this is unlikely to turn the republic into a peace-loving and lawful place. One explanation for the differences between Tatarstan and Dagestan lies in their contrasting histories.

Whatever: Snapshot of a jaded, liberal nation

Dan Lazar — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 10:34:09 +0000

BRITONS interested in politics (about a third of them, apparently) face a raucous punditocracy eager to assure them that their countrymen are becoming more liberal or more conservative, more cynical or more idealistic, usually according to the personal political views of the sage in question. Those looking for something more authoritative might be interested in the annual Social Attitudes Survey, which distils the responses of over 80,000 people to a variety of questions on politics, economics and society.

The most recent, based on interviews in 2008, was published on January 26th. It describes an increasingly jaded, increasingly liberal country, still attached to big government but dubious of official attempts to help the poor.

read on from the Economist

Re-Examining The Cold War Arms Race

Dan Lazar — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:39:03 +0000

Journalist David E. Hoffman’s new book The Dead Hand revisits the high stakes maneuvering that took place during the Cold War arms race and details the inner-workings of the Soviet nuclear program.

Hoffman had access to secret Kremlin documents while researching his book, which chronicles the Soviets’ internal deliberations, offers new insight into the roles of Mikhail Gorbachev and President Reagan, and describes the urgent search for nuclear and biological hazards left behind after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Hoffman, a Washington Post contributing editor, spent six years as the paper’s Moscow bureau chief. He is also the author of The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia.

Listen to his interview with Terry Gross (40 minutes)

Johnny Hodgman on the Depression

Dan Lazar — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:34:25 +0000

Johnny Hodgman is, well, hard to describe. He is overzealously hilarious in an understated way. He is a self-proclaimed genius who knows everything about anything. All tongue-in-cheek. Anyhoo, here is his satire on the depression life and the films about it.

John Hodgman – Hobo Matters

American Experience: The Depression

Dan Lazar — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:30:33 +0000

Here is a 60 minute documentary from our friends at PBS. It is part of the highly regarded American Experience Series. There are 6, 10 minute sections.

1 of 6 "After the Crash" Depression & Bonus March PBS American Experience 1990

Poisoning the Alcohol Supply

Dan Lazar — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:27:43 +0000

Although mostly forgotten today, the “chemist’s war of Prohibition” remains one of the strangest and most deadly decisions in American law-enforcement history. As one of its most outspoken opponents, Charles Norris, the chief medical examiner of New York City during the 1920s, liked to say, it was “our national experiment in extermination.” Poisonous alcohol still kills—16 people died just this month after drinking lethal booze in Indonesia, where bootleggers make their own brews to avoid steep taxes—but that’s due to unscrupulous businessmen rather than government order.

Read how the U.S. government poisoned untold thousands of its citizens in its “Noble Experiment”

How America Can Rise Again

Dan Lazar — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:23:03 +0000

Is America going to hell? After a year of economic calamity that many fear has sent us into irreversible decline, the author finds reassurance in the peculiarly American cycle of crisis and renewal, and in the continuing strength of the forces that have made the country great: our university system, our receptiveness to immigration, our culture of innovation. In most significant ways, the U.S. remains the envy of the world. But here’s the alarming problem: our governing system is old and broken and dysfunctional. Fixing it—without resorting to a constitutional convention or a coup—is the key to securing the nation’s future.

Read James Fallows’ piece

19 Questions

U.S. News Report on top universities

Atoms of Self-Interest

Dan Lazar — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:47:26 +0000

Type a one-page essay in support of (yes, I am only seeking pro-arguments so get into character if need be) the following prompt and post it in the comments section below. Feel free to perform some research–draw on Ayn Rand, Nietzsche, William F. Buckley, Herbert Spencer, Thoreau, Kierkegaard, et. al. Of course, you may quote such philosophers so long as you do so sparingly.

“Man owes nothing to society and man should ask nothing from society.”

31st anniversary of the Iranian revolution

Dan Lazar — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 09:57:38 +0000

Jason Rezaian offering a dispatch from Tehran for Slate

Dispatches from Russia

Dan Lazar — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 13:14:37 +0000

Slate correspondent Masha Green offers her reflections from traveling through the parts of Russia that we conveniently overlook.

The Breakup of China and Our Interest in It

Dan Lazar — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 13:11:11 +0000

Conclusion from The Atlantic in 1899:

“Is it for the benefit of the United States to deal with China as a vast unit under her native flag, or as fragments under many flags? That is what we have to decide…It is to be hoped that our government is silently exercising the utmost vigilance in behalf of our commercial privileges on the continent of Asia. Failure to do so might not be politically disastrous to the present administration, but posterity will not forgive nor history condone faults of omission or indifference after such warning as have already been given. Surely, no American administration would seriously contemplate the establishment of a dependency or protectorate on the mainland of China, while our interests there may be safeguarded by international control and reciprocity; but it is difficult to see how these securities can be obtained without more definite engagements on the part of our State Department than our uninformed public opinion now demands. Nevertheless, the signs of a healthy and growing interest are numerous.”

The more things change…

Here is the entire piece

A Nation of Racist Dwarfs: Kim Jong-il’s regime is even weirder and more despicable than you thought

Dan Lazar — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 13:03:08 +0000

Unlike previous racist dictatorships, the North Korean one has actually succeeded in producing a sort of new species. Starving and stunted dwarves, living in the dark, kept in perpetual ignorance and fear, brainwashed into the hatred of others, regimented and coerced and inculcated with a death cult: This horror show is in our future, and is so ghastly that our own darling leaders dare not face it and can only peep through their fingers at what is coming.

Hitchens reflects on a trip to North Korea in Slate

Explaining The American Filibuster

Dan Lazar — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 12:57:37 +0000

If high-school government class taught us anything, it’s that getting bills passed through Congress is a game of numbers: The bill with the most votes wins.

Turns out it’s not that simple. These days, the polarized state of American politics means that major bills need at least 60 votes to avoid an inevitable filibuster by the opposition.

Political scientist Gregory Koger’s new book, Filibustering: A Political History of Obstruction in the House and Senate, addresses the institutionalization of the filibuster — and describes congressional loopholes by way of which fast thinking and hard work can beat the numbers. Koger teaches American politics at the University of Miami. He joins host Terry Gross for a conversation about what has happened to simple majority rule.

Listen to Koger discuss the filibuster in an interview with Terry Gross

Top 100 Most Influential Americans

Dan Lazar — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 12:55:05 +0000

Who are the most influential figures in American history? The Atlantic recently asked ten eminent historians. The result was The Atlantic’s Top 100—and some insight into the nature of influence and the contingency of history. Was Walt Disney really more influential than Elizabeth Cady Stanton? Benjamin Spock than Richard Nixon? Elvis Presley than Lewis and Clark? John D. Rockefeller than Bill Gates? Babe Ruth than Frank Lloyd Wright?

The List

Methodology & Analysis