Changing the Metaphor Changing the Metaphor
For Jackson Lears, the United States remains in thrall to a bogus spiritual quest born of a refusal to face the tragedy of the Civil War.
Oct 14, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Richard White
Honey and Salt Honey and Salt
Technology has made us capable of exterminating ourselves. In The Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood wonders what might save us.
Oct 14, 2009 / Books & the Arts / William Deresiewicz
A Gift From the Ramparts of Capital… A Gift From the Ramparts of Capital…
People shouldn't take Peace Prizes too seriously except under those rare circumstances when a prize committee somewhere gets it right.
Oct 14, 2009 / Beat the Devil / Alexander Cockburn
Three Possible Explanations From the Nobel Committee Three Possible Explanations From the Nobel Committee
They have some justifying to do.
Oct 14, 2009 / Column / Calvin Trillin
It Costs Money to Die It Costs Money to Die
Forty-five years before Jessica Mitford's exposè of the funeral industry, Paul Blanshard found out just how expensive dying can be.
Oct 12, 2009 / Editorial / Paul Blanshard
Opting Out Opting Out
Jack Kevorkian is leading the movement to allow people to take death in their own hands.
Oct 12, 2009 / Editorial / Frank A. Oski
End-of-Self Help End-of-Self Help
Is the task of philosophy "to learn how to die," or to teach that there is no such thing as a good death?
Oct 8, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Alexander Provan
What Whoopi Goldberg (‘Not a Rape-Rape’), Harvey Weinstein (‘So-Called Crime’) et al. Are Saying in Their Outrage Over the Arrest of Roman Polanski What Whoopi Goldberg (‘Not a Rape-Rape’), Harvey Weinstein (‘So-Called Crime’) et al. Are Saying in Their Outrage Over the Arrest of Roman Polanski
He's been punished for this lapse--exiled for decades from LA!
Oct 7, 2009 / Column / Calvin Trillin
Drunk and Disorderly Drunk and Disorderly
Jean Rhys wrote about women who tangled with class and sexuality on their own terms.
Oct 6, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Phoebe Connelly
Suspended Sentences Suspended Sentences
Eliot Weinberger's enigmatic essays save him from becoming a prisoner of his polemical style.
Sep 30, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Scott Saul