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Report from Fukushima: REBECCA SOLNIT visited the disaster zone in northern Japan. “Disasters in the West are often compounded by the belief that human beings instantly revert to savagery in a calamity,” she says. “But in Japan, the greater problem seems to be conformity.” Rebecca wrote a Fukushima diary for the London Review of Books. She’s the author of A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster.
Plus: Tomorrow night, 5/10, George Clooney will host an Obama fundraiser at his house in Laurel Canyon – it’s the biggest presidential fundraiser in history, $12 million, and demonstrators will be there, calling for more aggressive action to prevent foreclosures. PEGGY MEARNS of the Campaign for a Fair Settlement will explain – the message to Obama is “Keep Americans in our houses, and we’ll keep you in yours.”
Also: Politics and economics: HAROLD MEYERSON says “the good times are gone – long-term prosperity may be a thing of the past.” Harold writes a column for the Washington Post op-ed page and is editor-at-large of The American Prospect.
