Author: Paul Rexton Kan File Type: epub Now in its sixth year, the conflict in Mexico is a mosaic of several wars occurring at once cartels battle one another, cartels suffer violence within their own organizations, cartels fight against the Mexican state, cartels and gangs wage war against the Mexican people, and gangs combat gangs. The war has killed more than 60,000 people since President Felipe Calderon began cracking down on the cartels in December 2006. The targets of the violence have been wide rangingfrom police officers to journalists, from clinics to discos. Governments on either side of the U.S.- Mexican border have been unable to control the violence. The war has spilled over into American cities and affects domestic policy issues ranging from immigration to gun control, making the border the nexus of national security and public safety concerns. Drawing on fieldwork along the border and interviews with officials at the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the Department of Defense, U.S. Border Patrol, and Mexican military officers, Paul Rexton Kan argues that policy responses must be carefully calibrated to prevent stoking more cartel violence, to cut the incentives to smuggle drugs into the United States, and to stop the erosion of Mexican governmental capacity. **

Author: Daniel Levin Becker File Type: pdf What sort of society could bind together Jacques Roubaud, Italo Calvino, Marcel Duchamp, and Raymond Queneauand Daniel Levin Becker, a young American obsessed with language play? Only the Oulipo, the Paris-based experimental collective founded in 1960 and fated to become one of literatures quirkiest movements. An international organization of writers, artists, and scientists who embrace formal and procedural constraints to achieve literatures possibilities, the Oulipo (the French acronym stands for workshop for potential literature) is perhaps best known as the cradle of Georges Perecs novel A Void, which does not contain the letter e. Drawn to the Oulipos mystique, Levin Becker secured a Fulbright grant to study the organization and traveled to Paris. He was eventually offered membership, becoming only the second American to be admitted to the group. From the perspective of a young initiate, the Oulipians and their projects are at once bizarre and utterly compelling. Levin Beckers love for games, puzzles, and language play is infectious, calling to mind Elif Batumans delight in Russian literature in The Possessed. In recent years, the Oulipo has inspired the creation of numerous other collectives the OuMuPo (a collective of DJs), the OuMaPo (marionette players), the OuBaPo (comic strip artists), the OuFlarfPo (poets who generate poetry with the aid of search engines), and a menagerie of other Ou-X-Pos (workshops for potential something). Levin Becker discusses these and other intriguing developments in this history and personal appreciation of an iconicand iconoclasticgroup. ** Main description What sort of society could bind together Jacques Roubaud, Italo Calvino, Marcel Duchamp, and Raymond Queneau-and Daniel Levin Becker, a young American obsessed with language play? Only the Oulipo, the Paris-based experimental collective founded in 1960 and fated to become one of literatures quirkiest movements. An international organization of writers, artists, and scientists who embrace formal and procedural constraints to achieve literatures possibilities, the Oulipo (the French acronym stands for 0workshop for potential literature0) is perhaps best known as the cradle of Georges Perecs novel A Void, which does not contain the letter e. Drawn to the Oulipos mystique, Levin Becker secured a Fulbright grant to study the organization and traveled to Paris. He was eventually offered membership, becoming only the second American to be admitted to the group. From the perspective of a young initiate, the Oulipians and their projects are at once bizarre and utterly compelling. Levin Beckers love for games, puzzles, and language play is infectious, calling to mind Elif Batumans delight in Russian literature in The Possessed. In recent years, the Oulipo has inspired the creation of numerous other collectives the OuMuPo (a collective of DJs), the OuMaPo (marionette players), the OuBaPo (comic strip artists), the OuFlarfPo (poets who generate poetry with the aid of search engines), and a menagerie of other Ou-X-Pos (workshops for potential something). Levin Becker discusses these and other intriguing developments in this history and personal appreciation of an iconic-and iconoclastic-group.