Daily News Feed 7.30.08

Vanity Fair Covers The New Yorker
We here at Vanity Fair maintain a kind of affectionate rivalry with our downstairs neighbors at The New Yorker. We play softball every year, compete for some of the same stories, and share an elevator bank. (You can tell the ones who are headed to the 20th floor by their Brooklyn pallor and dog-eared paperbacks.) And heaven knows we’ve published our share of scandalous images, on the cover and otherwise. So we’ve been watching the kerfuffle over last week’s New Yorker cover with a mixture of empathy and better-you-than-us relief. (Continue Reading…)

Over 2,000 raped last month in Congo’s east: report
More than 2,000 rape cases were recorded last month alone in Democratic Republic of Congo’s violent North Kivu province, a new report said on Tuesday, highlighting the failure of a U.N.-backed deal to deliver peace. Many more women and girls were raped but did not report it, the document added, saying that, since the signing of a January 23 deal between rebels, militia and government, 150,000 civilians had fled their homes amid continuing “horrendous violence.” The report by the Congo Advocacy Coalition, a collection of 64 international and local aid agencies and rights groups, is the latest damning indictment of an agreement meant to finally pacify North Kivu, a province in the mineral-rich east. (Continue Reading…)

Slavery in US Lingered Long After Civil War
This is how John Davis became a slave: He was walking one evening from the train depot in Goodwater, Ala., when a white man appeared in the road. “Nigger,” he demanded, “have you got any money?” The white man, Robert Franklin, was a constable. He claimed Mr. Davis owed him. This was news to Mr. Davis. “I don’t owe you anything,” he said. But what Mr. Davis said did not matter. He was arrested that night and summarily convicted. A wealthy landowner, John Pace, paid the alleged $40 debt and a $35 fine in exchange for Mr. Davis’ mark – Mr. Davis was illiterate – on a contract binding him to work 10 months at any task Mr. Pace demanded. For all intents and purposes, the one man now owned the other. For all intents and purposes, John Davis was John Pace’s slave. This was September 1901, 36 years after the end of the Civil War. It would be appalling if it happened once. Douglas A. Blackmon says it happened hundreds of thousands of times in Alabama alone. Mr. Blackmon, Atlanta bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, is the author of a compelling new book, Slavery by Another Name. Yours truly flatters himself that he is well versed in black history, but this book introduced me to a chapter of that history I did not know. (Continue Reading…)