Browse Topics

July 1995

Where The Wind Comes Sweeping

House Speaker Newt Gingrich insists there’s no connection between reactionary rhetoric and reactionary violence.

Global Depression

Global depression, I could call it in clinical jargon to indicate the pervasive nature of the disorder in the psyche. But lately the term has taken on a new meaning for me, suggesting a worldwide malaise shaped by the unconscious link between our suffering and the wounds the earth itself sustains. It seems as if the degradation of nature has produced a dark, subliminal undertow affecting the collective psyche.

President In My Heart

Their Turn

To the melancholy wailing of a Turkish flute, the dervishes enter the stage dressed in long black coats and tall woolen hats. It’s a dramatic moment even if you haven’t done your homework.

Law And Order

The most-feared policeman in the county, three-strikes defendants, an unforgettable Marshall

Free Radical

An Interview With Noam Chomsky

Up until December 1967, almost everybody had been a hawk. Starting in February 1968, everybody who was not a dove was saying they had been all along. If you look at the Kennedy-era intellectuals, they have two versions of what happened: the memoirs they wrote before the Tet Offensive and the books they wrote after it. These are radically different. Before Tet, there is no hint that anyone wanted to withdraw from Vietnam. The books after Tet are full of explanations about how Kennedy had plans to withdraw from Vietnam. The game was over by then, of course, and they wanted to cover their asses.

I Read The News Today

I’m wary of men and women whose speeches are impassioned but who rarely listen; who know how to save the world but not their own neglected marriages. Rather than face the dark side of their consciousness, they exhort us to march behind them in the lengthening shadows, to live (and die) for their truth (or re-election).

Portrait Of The Artist

I was painting on the night my mother died. Without realizing it then, I was saved by my obstinacy, my insistence on painting no matter what. Although painting has never been a replacement for tears — or for joy either — it was a healer for that moment.

The President’s Arms Are Like Oak Branches

My Day In Court

I’d rather be at my desk, shuffling my own papers. But a friend confided recently that he couldn’t abide self-important types who considered themselves too busy for jury service.