News Nuggets 742

A "living bridge" made of tree roots in the village of Nongriat in Meghalaya in India.  From the Daily Mail of the UK.

This is the best thing I've read so far looking back at 9/11:
Shock of 9/11 United Americans of All Races (Ian Reifowitz) from the Post Star [of the Adirondacks in New York]
"Speaking broadly, the years since 9/11 have witnessed continued improvement in race relations. One snapshot along the continuum was, of course, the election of President Barack Obama. It's easy now, almost three years later, to forget what a milestone it was to elect an African-American president. Think, however, about how far away a dream that must have seemed to those rioting in the streets in April 1992, or those mourning in 1968 when Martin Luther King Jr. was taken from us. In 2011 Ellis Cose published "The End of Anger." He discovered a transformation had occurred in the way black Americans-both those who were economically successful and those struggling-felt about race relations. Although racism had not vanished from our society, "black hopes, once held in check by the weight of prejudice and discrimination, have begun to soar free and ... black rage-corrosive, hidden, yet omnipresent-is ebbing.""

The Years of Shame (Paul Krugman) from the New York Times
Brief and to the point.
"What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. ... The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it."

In Cheney’s Memoir, it’s Clear Iraq’s Lessons Didn’t Sink In (Bob Woodward) from the Washington Post
"A key lesson of the 9/11 decade for presidents and other national security decision makers is the importance of rigorously testing intelligence evidence: poking holes in it, setting out contradictions, figuring out what may have been overlooked or left out. It is essential to distinguish between hard facts and what is an assessment or judgment. The so-called slam-dunk case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction illustrates the failure. If anyone should have learned this, it is former president George W. Bush and former vice president Dick Cheney."

For those who still cling to the "torture worked" meme, see this story:
Behind The War On Terror's Dark Curtain from NPR's Morning Edition
""From the very beginning, Abu Zubaydah was very cooperative, and he provided the information that led us to identify the mastermind of 9/11, which is Khalid Sheikh Muhammed," Soufan says. "He also provided significant details about the plot and how the plot came to be." ... Soufan says that the information stopped flowing after the arrival of a man he calls Boris."
The "War on Terror" will never need the likes of Franz Kafka or Joseph Heller.  With "enhanced interrogation," reality trumps any satire they could invent.  

An Impeccable Disaster (Paul Krugman) from the New York Times
"Financial turmoil in Europe is no longer a problem of small, peripheral economies like Greece. What’s under way right now is a full-scale market run on the much larger economies of Spain and Italy. At this point countries in crisis account for about a third of the euro area’s G.D.P., so the common European currency itself is under existential threat."
More on this emerging crisis is HERE from the New York Times.

World at Risk of Second Financial Heart Attack (Brian Milner) from the Globe and Mail [of Toronto]
"Actually, the still-unfolding European crisis merely highlights what has been going wrong on the policy front everywhere since the shocking financial meltdown and ensuing global slump three years ago."

The Magical World of Voodoo ‘Economists’ (Steven Perlstein) from the New York Times
"I realize economics isn’t a science the way biology and physics are sciences, but it’s close enough to one that there are ideas, principles and insights from experience that economists generally agree upon. Listening to the Republicans talk about the economy and economic policy, however, is like entering into an alternative reality."

New CNN Poll: Perry on Top When it Comes to Electability from CNN
"... according to a CNN/ORC International Poll, what appears to be Perry's greatest strength - the perception among Republicans that he is the candidate with the best chance to beat President Barack Obama in 2012 - seems to be exactly what the GOP rank and file are looking for."
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/12/new-cnn-poll-perry-on-top-when-it-comes-to-electability/

JFK NUGGET!!
In Tapes, Candid Talk by Young Kennedy Widow from the New York Times
"At just 34, and in what her daughter, Caroline Kennedy, describes in a foreword to the book as “the extreme stages of grief,” Mrs. Kennedy displays a cool self-possession and a sharp, somewhat unforgiving eye. In her distinctive breathy cadences, an intimate tone and the impeccable diction of women of her era and class, she delivers tart commentary on former presidents, heads of state, her husband’s aides, powerful women, women reporters, even her mother-in-law."

RENAISSANCE NUGGET!!
"Swerve": The Long-Lost Book that Launched the Renaissance (Laura Miller) from Salon
"The author of "Will in the World" finds the seeds of modern secularism in a book discovered in a medieval monastery."

E-BOOK NUGGET!!
Disappearing ink from the Economist [of London]
"Readers have never had it so good. But publishers need to adapt better to the digital world."