This article reports that in Japan, a scholar of communications, in the hope of getting people to talk with one another, holds "boxing" competitions in which the blows are thrown verbally, in verse. In a crowded Yokohama hall, boxers file into a ring watched by cheering students and a panel of university professors. Nobody is predicting…

Even with President Barack Obama's promises to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and withdraw troops from Iraq, the subject of torture keeps making the news. With all that detainees have had to endure during their incarcerations--the recent memos detail stress positions, cramped confinement, and waterboarding, among other tactics--perhaps…