From The American Interest, an article on the imminent death of the United States Postal Service. From The Wilson Quarterly, can America Fail? Kishore Mahbubani issues a wake-up call for an America mired in groupthink and blind to its own shortcomings. Despite Barack Obama's best intentions, America the imperialist superpower will still be with us for some time. Is the "Washington Consensus" really gone? Not if you ask John Williamson, the soft-spoken British economist who coined the term. The Shah of Venezuela: Enrique Krauze on the ideas that keep Hugo Chavez in power, and their disastrous consequences. An excerpt from The Kingdom of Infinite Space: An Encounter with Your Head by Raymond Tallis. New Scientist is in search of the happiest place on earth. From The Nation, a review of Songbook: The Selected Poems of Umberto Saba; and a review of The Norman Maclean Reader. From FLYP, a new study says too much popular music and too much sex go hand in hand; and artists are going to have to take a new look at their work, their role and their society — what will they see? Jurassic Web: The Internet of 1996 is almost unrecognizable compared with what we have today. Hipsters die another death at n+1 panel: "People called hipsters just happened to be young, and, more often than not, funny-looking". A review of 1848: Year of Revolution by Mike Rapport. Comic Relief: David Roth on the Bush-impersonator recession.
