Afghanistan's "Swine Politics"
For almost five years, Kim Barker was the South Asia bureau chief for the Chicago Tribune, directing coverage of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India. After the Tribune decided to cut back on foreign coverage, Barker quit in May to write a book and become the Edward R. Murrow fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Kabul has gone on red alert over swine flu-though the disease is not much in evidence. Kim Barker reports on why some think the government is using the disease as a pretext for stifling dissent.
Pandemic of Fear
Michael Specter writes about science and global public health for The New Yorker. His new book, Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives, has just been published by The Penguin Press.
The hysteria over the swine-flu vaccine-and not just the virus itself-is a public health disaster and the latest example of America's irrational thinking, says Michael Specter.
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
Jolie hunt is the global head of public relations for Thomson Reuters, appointed April 2008. Prior to that she served as global director of corporate and business affairs for IBM Corporation She was the director of PR for the Financial Times. She lives between New York and London.
John Barrasso is the junior senator from Wyoming.
Lee Siegel has written about culture and politics and is the author of three books: Falling Upwards: Essays in Defense of the Imagination; Not Remotely Controlled: Notes on Television; and, most recently, Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob. In 2002, he received a National Magazine Award for reviews and criticism.
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