When ‘Commentary’ Parroted ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ When ‘Commentary’ Parroted ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’
Like it or not, Jews and homosexualists are in the same fragile boat, and one would have to be pretty obtuse not to see the common danger.
Mar 23, 2015 / Feature / Gore Vidal
We Have Been Talking About Football’s Brutality for 120 Years We Have Been Talking About Football’s Brutality for 120 Years
American parents should keep their sons out of the game.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / The Editors
What Can the White Man Say to the Black Woman? What Can the White Man Say to the Black Woman?
Only one thing that the black woman might hear.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Alice Walker
Toward a Third Reconstruction Toward a Third Reconstruction
A conversation on The Nation, race and history at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture with Eric Foner, Darryl Pinckney, Mychal Denzel Smith, Isabel Wilkerson and Pat...
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / The Nation
The Bear The Bear
April 18, 1928 The bear puts both arms round the tree above her And draws it down as if it were a lover And its choke-cherries lips to kiss goodby, Then lets it snap back upright in the sky. Her next step rocks a boulder on the wall. (She’s making her cross-country in the fall.) Her great weight creaks the barbed wire in its staples As she flings over and off down through the maples, Leaving on one wire tooth a lock of hair. Such is the uncaged progress of the bear. The world has room to make a bear feel free. The universe seems cramped to you and me. Man acts more like the poor bear in a cage That all day fights a nervous inward rage, His mood rejecting all his mind suggests. He paces back and forth and never rests The toe-nail click and shuffle of his feet, The telescope at one end of his beat, And at the other end the microscope, Two instruments of nearly equal hope, And in conjunction giving quite a spread. Or if he rests from scientific tread, ’Tis only to sit back and sway his head Through ninety-odd degrees of arc it seems, Between two metaphysical extremes. He sits back on his fundamental butt With lifted snout and eyes (if any) shut (He almost looks religious but he’s not), And back and forth he sways from cheek to cheek, At one extreme agreeing with one Greek, At the other agreeing with another Greek, Which may be thought but only so to speak. A baggy figure equally pathetic When sedentary and when peripatetic. This article is part of The Nation’s 150th Anniversary Special Issue. Download a free PDF of the issue, with articles by James Baldwin, Barbara Ehrenreich, Toni Morrison, Howard Zinn and many more, here. Reviewing Robert Frost’s first book, A Boy’s Will, in 1915, The Nation described him as “a poet by endowment,” but “a symbolist only by trade.” Frost (1874–1963) wrote four poems for The Nation in the 1920s. When he died, the sportswriter Roger Kahn wrote in the magazine of his friend: “Robert Frost is dead and my mortality and yours is thus more stark.”
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Robert Frost
Which Direction Is the American Parade Headed? Which Direction Is the American Parade Headed?
Marching with the American Legion during the New Deal.
Mar 23, 2015 / Feature / John Dos Passos
Testimonials to ‘The Nation’ Testimonials to ‘The Nation’
Encomiums from Elizabeth Warren, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Bernie Sanders and many more.
Mar 23, 2015 / Feature
Michael Moore for President Michael Moore for President
If nominated, I will run. If elected, I will serve.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Michael Moore
A Q&A With Marilynne Robinson A Q&A With Marilynne Robinson
The novelist discusses religion, history, language and the importance of moral scrutiny.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts
Clickbait Has Plagued Journalism for 125 Years Clickbait Has Plagued Journalism for 125 Years
The dragging down of the mighty has been not unpleasing sport in all ages.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / E.L. Godkin and Rochelle Gurstein