Maia Gachechiladze (CEU) and Chad Staddon (UWE): Towards a Political Ecology of Oil in Post-communist Georgia. From the Journal of Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies, a special issue on military justice in Russia. From The New Yorker, Rebecca Mead on the soaring ambition of Santiago Calatrava. From Esquire, an inside look at this year's Young Republican Leadership Conference (and more). From Military.com, Phillip Butler, a fellow Vietnam POW of McCain's warns of the candidate's "quick and explosive temper" and suggests McCain is exaggerating his imprisonment. Noam Scheiber on how Cindy Hensley invented John McCain. Who's your daddy? An article on McCain, Obama, and the men who made them. Even Democrats find it difficult to classify Obama among the party's many types, from traditional liberals to neoliberals, New Democrats, Blue Dogs, and Net-roots activists. From Exiled, here's proof Obama isn't an American. From Hard News, an article on Stiglitz and Sen on profit and pain. A review of The Dismal Science: How Thinking Like an Economist Undermines Community by Stephen A. Marglin. From Jewish Political Studies Review, an interview with Rabbi David Ellenson on how modernity changed Judaism; and an interview with Joel Kotek on major anti-Semitic motifs in Arab cartoons. From JBooks, here's a literary history of the dirty Jew.
