Essays
1093 results
Page 88
How we misjudged Obama
The conciliator vs. the fighter: Why Obama is no FDR
A year ago, many observers (including me) thought Obama was the second coming of Franklin D. Roosevelt. In retrospect, FDR and Obama have more differences than similarities. But FDR was changed for the better by a personal crisis, and Obama might do the same.
Essays
3 minute read
Is the English major dying out?
Betrayal of the intellectuals: A wake-up call to English professors
The Modern Language Association recently reported a dizzying drop in tenure-track academic jobs on American campuses. Professors who narrowly cling to the status quo and sneer at modern trends, foreign cultures and new media have only themselves to blame for this predicament.
Essays
5 minute read
Bar mitzvah boy (a memoir)
The reluctant bar mitzvah boy (and his not quite assimilated father)
My father took pride in the way he'd assimilated in a hostile society. But he was ambivalent about having a Jewish son in a gentile school. In his mind, my bar mitzvah was non-negotiable.
Winter getaway: Peru
Land of magnificent extremes
Peru, I discovered, is a place where Conquistador palaces coexist with thatched-roof huts, Catholic churches are built over Incan temples, and a physician practices alongside a half-naked tribal shaman. And in what other airport terminal can you purchase shots of oxygen alongside cell phones?
Essays
7 minute read
Mark McGwire's steroid confession
The last white baseball hero comes (semi) clean
The disgraced ex-slugger Mark McGwire has confessed to taking steroids but still expects us to believe that a broken-down player in his 30s could achieve naturally not only what he couldn't in his 20s, but things no player had ever achieved before him. And he's hardly alone in his delusions.
Essays
6 minute read
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'The Truth About Love' (poem)
The Truth About Love
The thing about love is, it stays with you. After all, it's got nowhere else to go. Who says poets don't possess the secrets of the cosmos?
Essays
1 minute read
Airport security nightmare
Fear of flying (or landing): Your Customs Service in peace and war
After a 12-hour flight from Brazil, my husband was exhausted. Next thing he knew, he was in a windowless room, being told, “Do not look down, do not speak or we will take you down.”
Essays
3 minute read
The poet who drowned in a quandary
Robert Frost, call your office: Three light poems for a new decade
“I Would Have Liked You More If You Were Prettier” makes the short list of Lynn Hoffman's Poems I'll Probably Never Write. Also, Hoffman answers the cosmic question: Why are some poets admired and I'm not?
Essays
5 minute read
You've got mail, 1961 (Memoir)
Practical education, 1961: My brief career as a mailman
As a substitute summer mailman, I relished the fresh air and the freedom to set my own pace. I also learned how to game my employer, the federal government.
Patti Smith's punk purity
Patti Smith: The purity of a punk godmother
The Public TV documentary, Patti Smith: Dream of Life, reveals the punk icon as above all a woman of consummate purity. There's not a dram of pretense or drama in this woman; it's as if she lives each moment for the sake of exploration.
Essays
5 minute read