Fernando Teson (Florida State): The Morality of Targeted Killing. From Poroi, a special issue on Sexing the Colorlines: Black Sexualities, Popular Culture, and Cultural Production. Patrick Garvin on the all-purpose guide to epic movies. Are mercenaries just warriors? Deane-Peter Baker on the morality of guns for hire. Fired (and resigned) journalists extract literary revenge on their former bosses. From The Guardian's The Big Ideas, Judith Butler on Hannah Arendt's challenge to Adolf Eichmann: In her treatise on the banality of evil, Arendt demanded a rethink of established ideas about moral responsibility; and Elisabeth Young-Bruehl on how the capacity for evil can spread like an epidemic: The thoughtlessness of the controversy over Arendt's book on Eichmann only reinforces her point about "the banality of evil" (and more). George Monbiot on the moral case for nuclear power. From Books & ideas, social demotion is a concept which pervades public debate: it evokes the feeling of anxiety expressed by individuals, but it also represents a social and statistical reality which is experienced by members of the different age cohorts born since the beginning of the 1960s. Are smart people getting smarter? Jonah Lehrer investigates. Paid sources and the public's desire for dirt are fueling a hugely profitable, star-stalking culture in Hollywood — here's a stats-based look into that world. Navi Pillay on the shocking reality of homophobic rape. The most complex object in the known universe: With the help of two computer programs, neural cartographers can now chart the brain's difficult web of neural connections faster and more accurately. A review of Heaven on Earth: The Varieties of Millennial Experience by Richard Landes. An interview with Amitav Acharya on the relevance of regions, ASEAN, and Western IR’s false universalisms.
