HARPER’S MAGAZINE, the oldest general interest monthly in America, explores the issues that drive our national conversation through such celebrated features as Readings, Annotation, and Findings, as well as the iconic Harper’s Index.
Harper’s v. Harper It is a tradition among Canadian pundits to travel abroad bearing tales—possibly because it is easier to convince a foreign audience that the current government, regardless of its politics, has reduced the “once proud” country to a wasteland than it is to make the same argument at home, where readers might awkwardly notice that they are not surrounded by smoking ruins. Heather Mallick’s “The Nixon of the North” [Revision, October] is a classic of the genre. She passionately argues that if the current Conservative government is reelected, Canada “will sink, and everyone will drown in a hideous libertarian vortex.” Her proof of this is that Harper seems to be an unpleasant man and that his party hates liberalism. Unfortunately for Mallick, the facts are far less melodramatic.…
Can the earth be saved by bureaucrats in long meetings, reciting jargon and acronyms while surrounded by leaning towers of documents? That is what’s supposed to happen in France this month, when representatives from all the world’s nations gather for COP21, the twenty-first session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (U.N.F.C.C.C.), and the eleventh session of the parties to the Kyoto Protocol. “Just like in 1789, when the French Revolution gave great hope to the world,” Francois Hollande, France’s Socialist president, said about his aspirations for the conference, “history can be written in Paris.” Leaving aside the oddity of a president celebrating revolution—what makes him so sure he’s not the ancien régime?— Hollande’s statement unwittingly raises the possibility that the most…
At the end of August, the oldest Roma camp in France, known as Le Samaritain, was evacuated under the threat of force. The three hundred people living there—a quarter of whom held regular jobs and some of whose children were enrolled in school—were given three weeks’ notice. Their expulsion took a few hours. The decision to evacuate, which ignored much community resistance, was representative of France’s cynical attitude toward the tens of thousands of Roma who began arriving in the country after the European Union absorbed Romania and Bulgaria, in 2007. Since 2012, France has ignored the censure of the E.U., the United Nations, and human-rights groups, and evicted no fewer than 40,000 Roma living inside its borders. Le Samaritain was in the municipality of La Courneuve, just north of…
From entries made since 2009 to the U.S. Protocol Gift Unit Federal Register Report, which records items given by foreign dignitaries to federal employees. Large crystal table with an image of the American flag, to Barack Obama from Silvio Berlusconi. Bronze forty-eight-inch-tall statue of Abraham Lincoln, to Barack Obama from China. Female bare-breasted bust carved into tooth, to Joe Biden from Liberia. Framed painting of a dodo bird, with sequins and faux gemstones, to Hillary Clinton from Mauritius. Seventeen-inch-tall Plexiglas sculpture entitled Wrapping Flag Candy USA, depicting an upright Tootsie Roll with an American-flagpatterned wrapper, to Barack and Michelle Obama from France. Red-, white-, and gold-colored apron; bottle of Sulwhasoo Balancing Water, to Michelle Obama from South Korea. “Witcher 2” playing cards and five wooden dice in black sack with…
From a list of approximately 70,000 diagnostic codes included in the International Classification of Diseases, Clinical Modification, which was adopted by U.S. health-care providers in October. Poisoning by hair-treatment drugs Prolonged exposure in deep-freeze unit Fall from toilet with striking against object Contact with kitchen utensil Ignition or melting of nightwear Knitting and crocheting Intentional self-harm by hot tap water Fall into empty swimming pool Forced landing of balloon Accident involving ice yacht Alighting from or boarding dune buggy Burn due to water skis on fire Sucked into jet engine Prolonged stay in weightless environment Type A behavior pattern Insect bite of anus Pecked by chicken Bitten by orca…
From an audio recording entered as evidence in a 2014 lawsuit filed by a man identified as D.B., who claims that he inadvertently recorded his colonoscopy on his cell phone. Tiffany Ingham and Soloman Shah were the anesthesiologist and the gastroenterologist who performed the procedure. In June, a jury awarded D.B. $500,000 in damages. TIFFANY INGHAM: All right. This medicine is going to start making you feel a little drowsy and relaxed. D.B.: Pretty much instantly? INGHAM: Quickly, yeah. Once Dr. Shah comes in, I’ll make you go all the way to sleep. D.B.: What’s the medication? INGHAM: The one that I just gave you? It’s called midazolam. There you go. D.B.: I used to want to be a surgeon in high school. INGHAM: What kind of work do you…
