Peter Manseau on America’s history of “melancholy accidents,” or, the gunfail of our forebears: 

The power of #gunfail (and, when its victims are not children, its black humor) is found in its predictability: today or tomorrow, sure as a cartoon time bomb, there is bound to be another bang. Yet its haunting quality is not merely a matter of the sad certainty of fatal accidents stretching far into the future. It’s also about our collective past. We have been failing with guns for so long, there ought to be a way to hashtag history. If we could, a narrative would emerge of a nation that fancies itself created and sustained by guns but that, in fact, sees its people culled by them with unnerving frequency.

…

Inadvertent suicides and other firearm-induced injuries were so frequent in early America that a regular report of “melancholy accidents”—the #gunfail of our forebears—could be found in newspapers across the country throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Though these reports also took note of drownings and horse-tramplings, guns provided their assemblers with the most pathos per column inch…

Continue reading: http://nyr.kr/Y1MxYH

(Source: newyorker.com)

As we celebrate—what, no longer being there?—let’s spare a moment for Iraq, and the Iraqis…

Continue reading Jon Lee Anderson’s reflection on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq war: http://nyr.kr/14crdUd

Photograph: Alex Majoli/Magnum.

Michael Specter reflects on the influence of C. Everett Koop, former surgeon general who died yesterday: http://nyr.kr/13elk8o

And here, a look at what the magazine had to say about Dr. Koop on the occasion of his retirement, in August, 1989: http://nyr.kr/XVlnRe

(Source: newyorker.com)

Essie Mae Washington-Williams, the biracial daughter of segregationist Strom Thurmond, died this week. Here, Jelani Cobb reflects on the real lessons to be learned from Williams’s story, and on why, when Williams publicly revealed her patrilineage in 2003, the tale was shocking to many white observers, but it “little more than raised an eyebrow among many black ones”: http://nyr.kr/VKkPAn

Photograph: Tami Chappell/Reuters

(Source: newyorker.com)

In this week’s issue, Thomas Mallon looks at Richard Nixon’s political career, including his “Checkers” speech and his difficult relationship with President Eisenhower: http://nyr.kr/YtcLF0

Photograph: Richard and Pat Nixon with seven-year-old Tricia and five-year-old Julie and their cocker spaniel, Checkers, on the seashore of Mantoloking, New Jersey, August 15, 1953.

Our archive is full of strange stories about Richard Nixon, who would be one hundred years old this month.  Here’s a look: http://nyr.kr/XFlSf6

It seems almost pedantic to point out that slavery was nothing like this…

Jelani Cobb on Quentin Tarantino’s portrayal of slavery in “Django Unchained”: http://nyr.kr/VjguPH

For two decades during the Cold War, the United States Army tested chemical weapons on American soldiers at Edgewood Arsenal, a secluded research facility on the Chesapeake Bay. Thousands of men were recruited to volunteer; at the arsenal, they were exposed to chemicals ranging from mustard gas and sarin to LSD and PCP. In the December 17th issue of The New Yorker, Raffi Khatchadourian wrote about Colonel James S. Ketchum, who once headed the clinical studies at Edgewood and has become the program’s most prominent defender. In reporting the piece, Khatchadourian obtained hundreds of Army documents and raw scientific data, along with archival films about the human experiments. Some of the material was provided by doctors who worked at the arsenal; some of it was obtained directly from the government, through Freedom of Information Act requests. (These requests were made with the assistance of Betsy Morais, who works on the magazine’s editorial staff.) We have compiled some of that material here, in an online package called “Secrets of Edgewood.” Click-through for more: http://nyr.kr/RSZwLo

“Lincoln” vs. Lincoln: Hendrik Hertzberg on what Spielberg’s film got right, and what it got wrong: http://nyr.kr/U4D3sN

A key challenge for a second-term President lies in managing the delicate balance between what he wants (his priorities) and what he thinks the public wants (his perceived mandate)—and taking care not to confuse the two.

In this week’s issue, Ryan Lizza considers the nature of a successful second-term, and what President Obama pay attempt to achieve if reelected: http://nyr.kr/MCA4Eu