1776 and All That 1776 and All That
The country is riven and ailing, with a guns-plus-butter nuttiness in some of its governing echelons and the sort of lapsed logic implicit in the collapse of trust in money-center...
Jul 3, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Edward Hoagland
In Cold Type In Cold Type
Southern Exposure, which somehow looks--even in its third decade, in the twenty-first century--as if very advanced high school students had just stapled it together and put it on ...
Jun 27, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Amy Wilentz
Riders on the Storm Riders on the Storm
Dread ripples through me as I listen to a phone message from our manager saying that we (The Doors) have another offer of huge amounts of money if we would just allow one of our s...
Jun 20, 2002 / Books & the Arts / John Densmore
DYNASTIES! DYNASTIES!
How their wealth and power threaten democracy
Jun 20, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Kevin Phillips
A Word to Graduates: Organize! A Word to Graduates: Organize!
It's boring but do it, says the playwright. Otherwise, you allow evil to settle in.
Jun 13, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Tony Kushner
A Whole Earth Catalogue A Whole Earth Catalogue
In the United States a deeply rooted bias toward the practical renders all knowledge, even the most sublime forms of wisdom, merely an instrumental good. This pragmatic streak ten...
Jun 13, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Eric Zencey
The Browning of America The Browning of America
In the past two decades, Richard Rodriguez has offered us a gamut of anecdotes, mostly about himself in action in an environment that is not always attuned to his own inner life. ...
May 30, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Ilan Stavans
Patriotism’s Secret History Patriotism’s Secret History
Our most cherished national symbols—from the Pledge of Allegiance to "America the Beautiful" to Lady Liberty's poetry—are rooted in liberal ideals.
May 16, 2002 / Peter Dreier and Dick Flacks
The Loneliest Road The Loneliest Road
Late in the evening in back-road America you tend to pick the motels with a few cars parked in front of the rooms. There's nothing less appealing than an empty courtyard, with ma...
Apr 18, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Alexander Cockburn
Sensation Sensation
A friend and I were sitting around commiserating about the things that get to us: unloading small indignities, comparing thorns. "So there I was," she said, "sitting on the bus a...
Apr 18, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Patricia J. Williams