Commentaries - April 2008

Computers & genocide

Edwin Black's book about how IBM helped automate the Nazi death machine in Poland is stunning, even though most people who think about the European genocide of the 1940s won't be surpris

Revolution of the word, right here

"The significance of Jerome Rothenberg's animating spirit looms larger every year. ...

JFK at the end of ideology

Solutions to our national problems are not political but technical. Not great, but fine.

The odious machine

Ron Silliman, who knew Mario Savio fairly well in Berkeley, tells me that Savio did not seek out his leadership role in the Berkeley Free Speech Movement — that he was shy; that he would rather, fina