Essays
1090 results
Page 59
Jason Collins, Jackie Robinson and gay politics
Heroism, genuine and contrived, or: Mr. Collins, you're no Jackie Robinson
Gay rights and gay equality may have a way to go, but treating Jason Collins as a hero akin to Jackie Robinson for coming out at the end of his pro basketball career conflates an act of self-promotion with one of genuine courage and historic significance.
Essays
4 minute read
Banality as an art form
The most interesting man on the block
Do you have what it takes to be truly banal? Let me count the ways.
Essays
1 minute read
One more time: Freedom vs. security
The road to serfdom runs nowhere near my house
Dan Rottenberg mocked me for abandoning his stimulating streets of Philadelphia for the storm-ravaged coast of New Jersey. Hey, each of us cherishes a different version of the American dream.
Essays
3 minute read
The Gosnell trial and the abortion debate
A human? A tumor? Or something in between?
The Kermit Gosnell case has brought abortion back into the national debate, not that it's ever far from it. It may serve some purpose if it makes people on both sides think a little harder about when life begins, and the reality that poor women often face.
Essays
6 minute read
One simple idea to save humanity
While nations dithered, he acted
Just when you've given up hope for the future of humanity, along comes someone like John Wood to demonstrate why problems can be solved. The key isn't money or political power but imagination and optimism.
Essays
2 minute read
Woe to journalists at an arts festival
I alone survived, or: The sheer terror of covering an arts festival
Flacks to the left of me, flacks to the right of me, all firing unintelligible press releases in my direction. Take it from an arts journalist: There's nothing as exciting— make that terrifying— as covering an arts festival.
Essays
5 minute read
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A library for George W. Bush
A pyramid rises in Texas
The pharaohs had their pyramids, and the imperial presidency has its libraries. But, as an authoritative voice declared at the opening of the George W. Bush Library in Texas, this particular emperor has no clothes.
Essays
4 minute read
Memories of Philadelphia's countess
Our lady in London: The countess who saved Franklin's last house
Lady Mary Bessborough was a native Philadelphian, a British countess and above all a woman with a sense of history in the best meaning of that term.
Essays
2 minute read
Portrait of a survivor
Mom's survival secret: You can't and shouldn't go home again
My mother endured extreme poverty, dysfunctional relationships and traumatic upheavals. Yet wherever life took her for 91 years, she carried a quiet dignity within her own head.
Essays
8 minute read
Heart attack, Part 9: One last implant
A surgery to end all surgeries (or so we hope)
The stress test showed my heart had missed three beats. Skip another second or two, and— bang!”“ you're gone. Dr. M recommended an Internal Cardiac Defibrillator. Adele and I loved her. But if we never saw another hospital”¦
