In the last short while, articles & news reports of outstanding brilliance have been published and disappeared from view. It’s happened to all of us – but don’t let it happen to these. Indeed, if you know of great stories sinking beneath the waves of sex and teen-age starlets, let's try to save them.

KGIA & Almontaser If you haven’t already, stop right now and read Pulitzer-winner Andrea Elliott’s brilliantly researched and written reportage on the Kahlil Gibran International Academy and its founding principal Debbie Almontaser It’s long, thoughtful, a must read. I have a ton of things to say about it but – in summary – wow! (Past Daily Gotham items on point here and here )

Pentagon Manipulated Iraq Coverage Of course, I believe that everything that Mr. Bush and his servants say about Iraq is a lie. They’ve lied about causes, they’ve lied about costs. But how about journalists and analysts? As it turns out, Mr. Bush has been turning them into Pentagon parrots. Pulitzer-winner David Barstow nailed this perfectly ten days ago but except for his follow-up Pentagon says it stops pumping pundits with Bush party line -- it’s vanished from view. Why does a story like this die the death, asks the Columbia Journalism Review.

Torture’s Just Fine We’ve all come to expect Bush lies about torture and so, perhaps, the twisted rationale of charming thinkers like Justice Antonin Scalia (Torture for the purpose of extracting confessions or information is not cruel and unusual punishment because it’s not punishment ) perhaps no longer shocks us. But NY Times reporter Mark Mazzetti uncovered more torture rationales from Bush Department of Injustice. The Geneva Convention against torture, Common Article Three, doesn’t apply if, in the view of the torturer, the (so to speak) torturee possessing crucial information (a fact of course the torturer won’t know until after harming the prisoner).

Is Law Too Boring, He's not. Week after week on Tuesday Adam Liptak's Sidebar has been plowing new ground in legal reporting. Other than from lawyers and legal writers (like Talk Left's Jeralyn) Liptak's work has not draws the notice it deserves. He reports on the vast US prison population and high incarceration rates ; on low, cost, low quality, high volume legal work and it's ghastly consequences for
immigration appellants and on the impact of race on those facing the death penalty (being black is not healthy). He's a careful writer, a careful researcher, non-polemical in tone. His work is quite wonderful.

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