Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

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This week on nybooks.com: Misleading the public about torture, censoring a Chinese newspaper, the horrors of old age, Jordan’s balancing act with Syria, questions for the next CIA director, new conflict in Kashmir, Tarantino’s Dirty Harry, and a reminiscence of the early years of The New York Review.
ZERO DARK THIRTY ‘Disturbing’ & ‘Misleading’ Steve Coll Filmmakers cannot, on the one hand, claim authenticity as journalists while, on the other, citing art as an excuse for shoddy reporting about a subject as important as whether torture had a vital part in the search for bin Laden.
THE NEW MIDDLE EAST Jordan’s Syria Problem Nicolas Pelham As the uprising in Syria takes on an increasingly sectarian cast, Jordan has become a crucial center for the Islamist opposition.
DRONES, INTERROGATION, AND SPYING Twelve Questions for John Brennan David Cole Brennan has operated behind closed doors at the White House for four years, and has been perhaps the single most important person shaping counterterrorism policy. Here are twelve questions he should be asked to answer–-on the public record—before he is confirmed as CIA director.
CENSORSHIP The Old Fears of China’s New Leaders Jonathan Mirsky I felt a shudder of déjà vu watching the protests inside China for censoring an editorial in a liberal newspaper. It is all too similar to the disciplining of another Chinese newspaper which played an important part in the gathering unrest in Tiananmen Square.
AMOUR A Masterpiece You Might Not Want to See Francine Prose With its portrayal of the cruelties and indignities to which old age subject a happily married couple, Amour is far scarier than Hitchcock’s Psycho, and stays with you long after you might have chosen to forget it.					DJANGO UNCHAINED Wagner with Guns Christopher Benfey Some have questioned Tarantino’s right to show this or that aspect of slavery, while others celebrate a righteous black man taking care of the flawed nation’s business.
					EVENT Celebrating 50 Years Please join us at the Town Hall on February 5 for a special evening of reading and discussion with John Banville, Mary Beard, Michael Chabon, Mark Danner, Joan Didion, Daniel Mendelsohn, Darryl Pinckney, andRobert Silvers. Each guest will receive a facsimile edition of the first issue of The New York Review of Books.
INDIA VS. PAKISTAN A New Conflict in Kashmir? Ahmed Rashid Over the past week, the cease-fire agreement in Kashmir has seemed in danger of unraveling. The new confrontation poses a grave threat to the entire region.
REMINISCENCE 57th Street Rag Janet Coleman I arrived in December 1963, before the NYR had been on the newsstands a year. I was twenty-one. Within its first year, the magazine scraped the barnacles off the values of the older American intellectual class.