Unsolicited Survey Unsolicited Survey
Have you been there? If so, can you describe the shape of the shadows? When you entered, did anyone greet you? Did the moss hug your foot or a jay screech in your ear? Were you afraid you would not get back? Did they ring a bell? How many times, and what did it sound like? Did a horse bow its head by the side of a road? Did a single feather lie at the clearing? Did a green wave cascade into a grove? Did the flavor of light infect your sleep? Did a toad leap from the dust onto a twig? Did deer turn in terror as you passed? Did a doe lick your hand and find you wanting? Did you behold a flower that cannot fade? Was the sky so empty that you fell upward? Did the needles of a pine tickle your nose? Did you sniff the ghost of the cedars of Lebanon? Did you follow a petal blown to the edge of the sea? Did you wake with a sheet twisted around your throat? Did you call out? Did you kneel at a blade of grass or at the mound of an anthill? Did you ask for a way in or a way out? Did a bough sway imperceptibly? Did you rest your hand on the shoulder of a god? Did you open a piece of fruit and offer a portion of it to the sun? How long did it take to finish, and were you satisfied? Did a fly sip some water from a stone? Did you touch the haze on a plum, its blue cloud? Did you rub its skin until it lost its bloom? Did the day burn in a crow's eye? Were the stars so clear another heaven appeared behind them? Did you hear the wind consoling the leaves? Did you look inside the cap of a mushroom, and part the curtain of disbelief?
Dec 22, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Phillis Levin
Return of Legal Realism Return of Legal Realism
Bush v. Gore may have superficially resolved a short-run political crisis, but it has triggered a deep intellectual crisis.
Dec 22, 2000 / Sanford Levinson
In Fact… In Fact…
PROGRESSIVES FRISK IN FRISCO Tom Gallagher writes: They don't make routs much bigger than the one San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and allies experienced on December 12. After the runoffs of the city's first district Board of Supervisors elections since the days of Harvey Milk and Dan White, Brown-backed candidates had lost nine of eleven seats to an insurgency built to a considerable extent on Tom Ammiano's remarkable 1999 write-in mayoral campaign and fueled by the widespread perception of a city for sale. While deputy public defender Matt Gonzalez increased his 44-to-28 percent preliminary edge to 66-to-34--despite switching from Democrat to Green in the interim--none of Brown's runoff candidates reached even 52 percent (one drew only 19 percent) despite an overwhelming soft-money advantage. DEATH ROW SURVIVORS Scattered through the text of Robert Sherrill's article in this issue are photographs of eight former Illinois death-row prisoners taken by Loren Santow, a Chicago-based, widely published freelance photographer. The photos of men wrongly condemned to death were taken for a poster conceived by Rob Warden, a writer and activist, to publicize the errors endemic to the system. Before the present moratorium and since the restoration of capital punishment in Illinois, twelve prisoners have been executed, and thirteen freed because of innocence or lack of evidence. See Death Row Roll Call on the Nation website (www.thenation.com/deathrow) for a list of inmates awaiting execution and links to register a protest. NATION NOTES We congratulate the following friends who were awarded the National Humanities Medal: Toni Morrison, editorial board member; Barbara Kingsolver, Nation cruise panelist; and Earl Shorris, contributor and founder of classics courses for the poor. And National Medal of the Arts winner Benny Carter, reader.
Dec 22, 2000 / The Editors
The Nation Indicators The Nation Indicators
We're sorry, but Doug Henwood's enlightening charts and graphs can be seen only in our print edition, as it is not technically feasible at this time to post them on our website.
Dec 22, 2000 / Doug Henwood
Thou Shalt Not Kill Thou Shalt Not Kill
Christians are drifting away in their support of the death penalty.
Dec 22, 2000 / Feature / Marion Gross
Clinton Follows the Money Clinton Follows the Money
Bill Clinton is moving to install Terry McAuliffe as the head of the DNC, a cynical move in this day of pay-to-play politics.
Dec 22, 2000 / William Greider
The Living Thought of Military Dictatorships The Living Thought of Military Dictatorships
We're sorry, but we do not have permission to present this article on our website. It is an excerpt from Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking-Glass World (Metropolitan). © 2000 by Eduardo Galeano. Translation © 2000 by Mark Fried.
Dec 22, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Eduardo Galeano
Executioners’ Swan Song Executioners’ Swan Song
Capital punishment will be one of the defining issues of the coming year.
Dec 22, 2000 / The Editors
Questions for Powell Questions for Powell
Secretary of State-designate Colin Powell needs to explain his participation in several sordid episodes of the United States' past.
Dec 22, 2000 / David Corn
Let’s Get Our Show on the Road! Let’s Get Our Show on the Road!
Bush v. Gore is a fitting start to the next four deranged years.
Dec 22, 2000 / Column / Alexander Cockburn