Browse Topics

Hero With A Thousand Faces

One of Bill Clinton’s favorite movies, according to the newspaper, is High Noon. It’s one of my favorites, too, a classic Western about a lone man standing up against evil. I watched it again the weekend before the inauguration.

Confederacy Of Dunces

The Tyranny Of Compulsory Schooling

The new dumbness — the non-thought of received ideas — is much more dangerous than simple ignorance, because it’s really about thought control. In school, a washing away of the innate power of individual mind takes place, a “cleansing” so comprehensive that original thinking becomes difficult.

My Campaign Diary

I run for president the same way. Every few weeks, I go to St. Mark’s Church (a half block from my house), mimeograph leaflets, and stick some in my attache case. Whenever it comes up in a conversation that I’m running for president, I take one out.

Fool’s Gold

Why should someone like me worry about the recession as much as I do? I didn’t have any money before it, and I won’t have any money after it. The housing it is now killing me to buy will cost less the next time I have to buy. I have more to gain than to lose.

When The Bough Breaks

When we finally reach the street, it’s like moving into the current of a mighty river. We pass the White House, the Treasury, the Justice Department, all the cornerstones of empire that remind us this is Washington, where decisions are made that affect everyone, the way one careless moment, one broken promise — one broken condom — can affect your whole life.

Games People Play

Yet even the oppressed oppress one another — hoarding just a little, worrying more about their kids than those next door. The illusion of separateness is a game played by rich and poor alike: the game that I’m in here, you’re in there; that these bodies are separate nations.

Reopening The Wound

Reflections On Oliver Stone’s JFK

I’ve never been as strongly affected by a movie as I was by Oliver Stone’s JFK. Although Stone takes artistic liberties in weaving together the disturbing facts surrounding Kennedy’s assassination and its subsequent investigation, I found his central thesis — that Kennedy’s death was part of a well-orchestrated plot reaching into the highest levels of our government — not only plausible, but compelling.

Anthem

The Defense Of Madrid

Neal fell in love with Linda in a single, violent onslaught of emotion, a torrent filled with restaurants, unexpected encounters, and flowers that were never roses.

Euripides