The Post-Post-Apocalyptic Detroit
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on July 12th, 2014 11:08 pm by HL
The Post-Post-Apocalyptic Detroit
Ben Austen, New York Times Magazine
In downtown Detroit, at the headquarters of the online-mortgage company Quicken Loans, there stands another downtown Detroit in miniature. The diorama, made of laser-cut acrylic and stretching out over 19 feet in length, is a riot of color and light: Every structure belonging to Quicken’s billionaire owner, Dan Gilbert, is topped in orange and illuminated from within, and Gilbert currently owns 60 of them, a lordly nine million square feet of real estate in all.
The Rise of Southern Democrats
Brent Budowsky, The Hill
In the battle of Democrats to keep control of the Senate in 2014 and win a substantial victory in the presidential election 2016, the new rise of Southern Democrats is a very big deal.Throughout the South, a new generation of highly talented Bill Clinton-style political leaders has brought the Democratic Party to a strongly competitive position. I call it the battle between Johnny Cash Democrats, who are big-tent believers in a widely shared dream, and Ted Nugent Republicans, who are small-tent believers waving lists of Americans they consider enemies.
Hillary Clinton’s Lawyerly Past
Ruth Marcus, Washington Post
WASHINGTON — It should not be necessary to write this column.Lawyers represent clients. Criminal defense lawyers represent clients accused of crimes — sometimes horrible, evil clients accused of heinous crimes.It is the ethical and professional responsibility of these lawyers to defend those clients as vigorously as possible.Sometimes such representation results in less than perfectly just results. As Justice Benjamin Cardozo famously put it, the criminal goes free because the constable has blundered. That is the way — the only way — an adversary system of criminal justice can…
LeBron, the Midwest and Coming Home
John Kass, Chicago Tribune
If you’re from the Midwest, you probably hated LeBron James.Who didn’t?Not true hatred, of course. I’m talking about sports hatred.It’s not something you act on. But it’s bitter, and it just sits there on your heart as you watch that other team celebrate or that other player with the rings kissing the trophy, that one athlete who seems to cut your heart out year after year.
Obama’s Understated Foreign Policy Gains
Michael Cohen, NY Times
It’s been a pretty good couple of weeks for American foreign policy. No, seriously.On June 23, the last of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile was loaded onto a Danish freighter to be destroyed. The following day, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia asked his Parliament to rescind the permission that it had given him to send troops into Ukraine. Meanwhile, there is still cautious optimism that a nuclear deal with Iran is within reach.
