Graeme Wood

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20 March 2011 • 7:18 pm 0

Tragedy at a Nuclear “Playground”

Originally appeared in The Daily.

The Idaho Falls meltdown killed three, but American nuclear experiments continued

 

According to the United Nations, the plume of radiation from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi reactors has already started hitting the United States, starting with Alaska and reaching California this weekend. The doses of radiation will be minute, scientists say — ranging from completely undetectable to detectable but harmless, similar to the amount one gets from eating a few healthy supermarket bananas. In other words, when it comes to radiation exposure, the American West has had worse. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Daily, , ,

17 March 2011 • 10:18 pm 0

A Boom Behind Bars

In the current Businessweek, I have a piece about the private prison industry and immigrant detention.

Filed under: Businessweek

11 March 2011 • 1:16 am 0

The Taliban Shuffle

Originally appeared in The National.

There are writers, and I am one of them, who believe that no book can be serious if it cannot also make you laugh. Permanent sobriety is no more trustworthy than permanent buffoonery. Why trust an author to tell you what’s grave and terrible when that same author seems to think everything is grave and terrible? Some critics may object that there is no comedy in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan. These are exactly the people one can safely disregard.

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Filed under: National, , ,

9 March 2011 • 1:56 pm 0

Arab Revolutions Through the Wikileaks Lens

In Foreign Policy, a short essay about reading US diplomatic cables after the revolutions in Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt.

Filed under: Foreign Policy

9 March 2011 • 12:54 pm 0

I am the Market

I reviewed Luca Rastello’s I am the Market: How to Smuggle Cocaine by the Ton in Five Easy Lessons in The Barnes & Noble Review.

Filed under: Barnes & Noble Review

6 March 2011 • 6:57 pm 0

The Barbary Pirates

North African pirate states meet the U.S. Navy

Originally appeared in The Daily.

Two U.S. Navy vessels, the Ponce and the Kearsarge, are nearing the Libyan coast, officially to provide humanitarian aid and evacuate straggling Americans. The shores of Tripoli are well known as a historic landing ground for the U.S. Marines. But for the U.S. Navy, the coast is even more hallowed as the site where it came into its own as a fighting force, where it executed one of the most daring raids in naval history and where, for the first time, the young nation’s sailors truly kicked ass. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Daily, ,

1 March 2011 • 2:12 am 0

After the Fall

Originally appeared in Caravan, edited from dispatches at TheAtlantic.com.

Dispatches from Egypt’s revolution
HOSNI MUBARAK with donkey ears, Hosni Mubarak with a Hitler moustache, Hosni Mubarak as Colonel Sanders—once the protesters started heaping on the scorn, they couldn’t stop. It had been a long time coming.

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Filed under: Caravan

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