This Week’s Best Reads

Bravo l’artiste
John Lanchester, London Review of Books

If we follow the logic of Fredric Jameson’s Postmodernism: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, we could say that Rupert Murdoch is not so much a man, or a cultural force, as a portrait of the modern world. He is the way we live now; he is the media magnate we deserve.

The CIA’s Secret Sites in Somalia
Jeremy Scahill, The Nation

Renditions, an underground prison, and a new CIA base are elements of an intensifying U.S. war, according to a Nation investigation in Mogadishu.

How Kevin McCarthy Wrangles the Tea Party in Washington
Robert Draper, New York Times Magazine

The House majority whip may have the toughest job in Washington: persuading dozens of congressional Tea Party freshmen to play well with others.

Three Days on the Jersey Shore 
Stephen Galloway, The Hollywood Reporter

Sleepless on the set in Italy with Jersey Shore producer SallyAnn Salsano as she oversees the wildly successful MTV hit—and plays Mom, shrink, and shoulder to cry on to an even wilder, out-of-control cast.

Little Gitmo
Christopher S. Stewart, New York

When an upstate imam named Yassin Aref was convicted on a suspect terrorism charge, he was sent to a secretive prison denounced by civil libertarians as a Muslim quarantine.

The Billion-Dollar Bank Heist
Gary Rivlin, Newsweek

How the financial industry is buying off Washington—and killing reform.