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Midway through “Generosity,” Richard Powers’ stunning new novel, the charming businessman and geneticist Robert Kurton participates in a public debate with an unnamed novelist. The subject: genetic enhancement of human beings. The shy author begins, awkwardly reading from a prewritten speech. But his argument is complex, as Powers writes, “The writer’s thought is so dense that every clause tries to circle back for another try before plunging on.” Even the narration has trouble following the train of thought. Kurton takes stage, joking...
History Professor Caroline Elkins was awarded tenure on July 1 after eight years as an associate professor of African Studies at Harvard. Elkins said she first discovered a “passion” for African history when she took a course on the subject as an undergraduate at Princeton. She said she is drawn to the subject because it provides an “intellectual challenge” and involves “thinking outside the box” to understand the “confluence of so many areas of history...
...health-care-reform bill passed this year. No question about it," Senator John Kerry told me recently. We were in New York City for the U.N. General Assembly festivities, talking about the frustrations the Obama Administration is facing overseas, especially in Afghanistan, when I changed the subject and asked about health care. Kerry's certainty led to an unexpected thought: Barack Obama may well be having an easier time handling domestic issues than foreign ones. Indeed, he may be headed for the most successful domestic-policy year by a Democratic President since Lyndon Johnson's legislative tidal wave...
...czar post has always had opponents, and criticism has swelled along with attention to Obama's appointments. Foremost among them are members of Congress who believe the advisers circumvent the legislative branch's proper supervision of the executive (unlike Cabinet secretaries, czars are not subject to confirmation votes). Earlier this month, six Republican lawmakers wrote a letter to Obama complaining that 18 White House positions "may be undermining the constitutional oversight responsibilities of Congress." Democratic Senator Robert Byrd, a well-known defender of Senate prerogatives, complained about the positions in a letter earlier this year. A spokesman replied that Obama...
...numbers but also sparked an intense nationwide debate about the essential meaning of being Chinese. Over the past month on Internet chat rooms, where modern China's sensitive issues are thrashed out by netizens long before they reach the heavily censored mainstream media, Lou's ethnicity has been the subject of a relentless barrage of criticism, some of it crudely racist. Many think she should not have been allowed to compete on a Chinese show, or at least not selected to represent Shanghai in the national competition. She doesn't have fair skin, which is one of the most important...