Liberty’s Language
NEW YORK - As the ultimate guardians of language and its complexity, writers have always felt the need to deal with the great crises of their time. In those… More
Torturers and Terrorists
So now we think we know who took some of the photographs at Abu Ghraib. The works attributed to Specialist Jeremy Sivits are fated to remain among the indelible… More
Larry McMurtry testimony
Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and Administrative Justice of the House Judiciary Committee Chairman: Jack Brooks My name is Larry McMurtry. I am a writer. I have published several novels, including… More
Reading Is a Prime Defense Against Assault on Our Rights
As a child, one of my favorite novels was Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451." Its subject is book burning — 451 degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature at which books catch… More
A Shock to the System
Natural disasters often lay bare a society's grim realities and sometimes shock citizens into political action. Twenty years ago today, a catastrophic earthquake in Mexico City shook that society… More
Living With the Dead
Oakland, Calif.—And where do the dead go after they have sucked down their last breaths and drowned in the rafters of their homes? After they have died in the… More
Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans?
What do people really know about New Orleans?Do they take away with them an awareness that it has always been not only a great white metropolis but also a… More
The Kingdom and the Power
The news yesterday that King Fahd of Saudi Arabia had died sent only minor ripples through Wall Street, and caused few jitters in the already nervous energy markets. That… More
Fifty Percent
I stand beneath the eaves at the back entrance to a prison school classroom watching the rain. A double row of chain-link fencing topped by spools of razorwire separate… More
Countdown in Fear
We call him Little Z. Today he received in the mail the news he had been fearing, word from the trial court that he has been assigned an execution… More