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
The Politics of Ethics The Politics of Ethics
By identifying ethics with civic virtue, we create an ethics of the left.
Mar 21, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Randy Cohen
Black Mischief Black Mischief
On East Capitol Street a few years ago, I was in a taxi when a car pulled suddenly and dangerously across our bow. My driver was white, with a hunter's cap and earmuffs and an inde...
Feb 14, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Christopher Hitchens
Society of the Spectacle Society of the Spectacle
The slogans scrawled across the walls of Paris in May 1968 suggest possibilities most of us have forgotten or that were long ago deemed preposterous. "Never work!" said one sloga...
Feb 7, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Jeremy Smith
Artistic Economics Artistic Economics
At work recently, I went to get a ham sandwich from the university cafeteria. I discovered, to my vocal dismay, that the well-loved food counter offering homemade fare had been t...
Jan 3, 2002 / Books & the Arts / David Hawkes
Which America Will We Be Now? Which America Will We Be Now?
September 11 showed us true American heroes. Now let's build on their strength.
Nov 1, 2001 / Books & the Arts / Bill Moyers
The Future of the Public Intellectual: A Forum The Future of the Public Intellectual: A Forum
The following debate is adapted from a forum--put together by Basic Books and held in New York City some weeks ago. Participating were: John Donatich, who moderated and is publis...
Jan 26, 2001 / Books & the Arts / Various Participants
Lennon’s Greatest Hits Lennon’s Greatest Hits
December 8, 2000: It was twenty years ago today that Mark David Chapman shot and killed John Lennon outside the Dakota on West 72nd Street in New York City, bringing whatever was...
Nov 30, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Jon Wiener
The ‘Ism’ That Won the Century The ‘Ism’ That Won the Century
To buy or not to buy turns out to have been the question of the century in America--Just Do It or Just Say No. And in the past fifteen years, consumer society has moved to the ce...
Nov 16, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Lawrence B. Glickman