Columbia International Affairs Online: Journals

CIAO DATE: 08/2011

From the Editor

The Objective Standard †

A publication of:
The Objective Standard

Volume: 0, Issue: 0 (Summer 2011)


Abstract

Full Text

Welcome to the Summer 2011 issue of the journal for people of reason. As the cover indicates, we have a few things to say about the situation in the Middle East. Items on this front include my article “The Iranian and Saudi Regimes Must Go”; an interview with author Reza Kahlili, an ex-CIA spy who was long embedded in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards; an interview with historian John David Lewis about U.S. foreign policy and the Muslim world; and related movie and book reviews. On the domestic front, in “ObamaCare v. the Constitution” Paul Beard presents a compelling legal argument against the Individual Mandate; in “The Government’s Assault on Private-Sector Colleges and Universities” I examine a jaw-dropping saga that is too fantastic for fiction; and, in his delightful interview, Andy Kessler explains why we’d all enjoy a higher standard of living if more businessmen would “eat people.” Films reviewed in this issue are Iranium, directed by Alex Traiman (reviewed by Daniel Wahl); and Temple Grandin, directed by Mick Jackson (reviewed by C. A. Wolski). Books reviewed include Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad by John Bolton (reviewed by Gideon Reich); The Infidel: Chapter One by Bosch Fawstin (reviewed by Joshua Lipana); Why ObamaCare is Wrong For America: How the New Health Care Law Drives Up Costs, Puts Government in Charge of Your Decisions, and Threatens Your Constitutional Rights by Grace-Marie Turner, James C. Capretta, Thomas P. Miller, and Robert E. Moffit, (reviewed by Jared M. Rhoads); Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada’s Oil Sands by Ezra Levant (reviewed by Andrew Brannan); Anti-intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter and The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby (reviewed by Burgess Laughlin); the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman (reviewed by C. A. Wolski); Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer (reviewed by Daniel Wahl); and Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory by Ben Macintyre (reviewed by Daniel Wahl). Enjoy the issue, have a wonderful summer, and keep living like you only live once!