Fenced Fourth Estate

How could you not take subversive pleasure in this letter-duo found in the week’s Economist?
SIR – Philip Bowring’s account of the Far Eastern Economic Review’s encounter with the Singapore government is inaccurate (Letters, October 17th). In 1987 the government restricted the circulation of the Review after it had engaged in Singapore’s domestic politics. But an [...]

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Expatriotism

In Rostock, where I lived for several months, a 23-year-old state-level politician has lost his job and been fined 200 Euro for publishing this photo on the German rip-off of Facebook:

His crime was “Verunglimpfung der Bundesrepublik Deutschland,” or denigrating the Federal Republic of Germany (that’s a German flag in there). In the newspaper article, he [...]

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What Christmas, Terror, Family Values, and Drugs Have in Common

This week’s Economist has a series of articles about drug prohibition. Here’s the main point from the leader:
Next week ministers from around the world gather in Vienna to set international drug policy for the next decade. Like first-world-war generals, many will claim that all that is needed is more of the same. In fact the [...]

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Weltschmerz

My roommate was born in Mexico and immigrated legally to the US where he was one of my classmates at university. He graduated from a well-ranked program, speaks English fluently, has ten times as many American friends as I do, and as far as I know did not acquire his current job at an environmental [...]

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Smoke & Mirrors

As someone who does not smoke, I am sympathetic to the complaints of other non-smokers about the ill effects they must endure when patronizing restaurants, bars, and clubs where smoking is permitted and pervasive. Indeed, as someone who not only suffered from childhood asthma but has also been diagnosed with a mild allergy to tobacco, [...]

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