If You Are Not Afraid of Long Articles...

I very rarely read the New York Review of Books anymore, which is quite a change from when I was in graduate school and thereafter for quite a while...

There are a lot of reasons for this-- one of them, I am embarrassed to say, is that like a lot of people I just don't like to read long articles as much as I did when I was younger.

Like everyone else, I have been influenced by sound bytes and the tendency to try and make glib statements about the world around us. 

If you'r e not afraid of long articles, check out the one from a recent New York Review about the current economic disaster at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22655 ( can't make this into a hyperlink here-- try copying it-- if that doesn't work, just Google up"New York Review of Books" and look for the Home Page). 

One concession the NYRB has made is that it now has podcasts, too. 

The article concerns a book about the current global economic meltdown written by a libertarian American judge and reviewed by a left-liberal writer. The judge, a man named Posner, has shifted somewhat on his ideas about capitalism and market self-regulation...

Paradoxically, the length of the article is necessary to make a concise statement about where we are now...how we got here, and what the future may hold.

You will have heard a lot of this before, particularly if you watch shows like "Bill Moyer's Journal." But this is an extremely good summary.

Take a deep breath and try it...