Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

What’s new on nybooks.com: The connections between drone killing and digital surveillance, aging and death in our society, the benefits of jealousy, the living hell people make for animals, understanding the Senate torture report, exquisite tiny marine invertebrates, magnificent Renaissance tapestries, Academy Award–contending films, and a plan to rescue Ukraine. THIS ISSUE SPONSORED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS

Must Counterterrorism Cancel Democracy? David Cole Increasingly, our governments seem to be insisting that our lives be transparent to them, while their policies remain hidden from us.   ADVERTISEMENT   A Better Way Out Marcia Angell In his newest and best book, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, the surgeon Atul Gawande lets us have it right between the eyes: no matter how careful we are or healthful our habits, like everyone else, we will die, and probably after a long period of decline and debility.   Who Is Not Guilty of This Vice? Diane Johnson Love makes the world go round, says the poet, while the cynic says it’s money; and Peter Toohey constructs an entertaining argument for jealousy being the wellspring of a much greater part of our emotional lives, and of a larger proportion of literature, law, and daily existence, than we may have thought.   ADVERTISEMENT   ALSO IN THE JANUARY 8 ISSUE Alma Guillermoprieto on murder in Mexico Geoffrey Wheatcroft on the Murdoch gang Martin Filler on Frank Gehry Robin Lane Fox on botanical gardens Stephen Greenblatt on Boccaccio Darryl Pinckney on Ferguson and much more   “In a democracy no one, however powerful or impotent, can have a right not to be insulted or offended.” — Ronald Dworkin, The Right to Ridicule (2006)   Our Animal Hell Robert Pogue Harrison We like to think of ourselves as the stewards or even saviors of nature, yet for the animal world at large, the human race represents nothing less than a natural disaster.   Our New Politics of Torture Mark Danner, interviewed by Hugh Eakin We’re seeing a public effort at disinformation, cheerleading for torture. It’s an astonishing thing: torture, which used to be illegal, which used to be anathema, has now become a policy choice.   Lilliput Under the Sea Tim Flannery Susan Middleton’s Spineless reveals a world where hermit crabs resemble wizards carrying their own magic mountains on their backs, and where worms are transformed into exquisite, pearly necklaces.   Reliving the Renaissance Anthony Grafton To walk through galleries hung with Pieter Coecke’s tapestries is like strolling in an immense kaleidoscope, as histories and allegories, expressive faces and exotic plants, angels and animals float by.   Film on the NYRblog: Jenny Uglow on Frederick Wiseman’s National Gallery, Geoffrey O’Brien on Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice, Masha Gessen on Andrey Zvyagintsev’sLeviathan   A New Policy to Rescue Ukraine George Soros If the international authorities fail to come up with an impressive assistance program in response to an aggressive Ukrainian reform program, the new Ukraine will probably fail, Europe will be left on its own to defend itself against Russian aggression, and Europe will have abandoned the values and principles on which the European Union was founded. That would be an irreparable loss.