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
We’re in the Process of Losing Our Country
Was the Wednesday August 4 PEN Club meeting, during which several writers read texts, a demonstration against George Bush or a position-taking in favor of John Kerry?The PEN Club… 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
Life Under the Knife
My job in the library was my only peace in prison. The library was a little room, it couldn’t have been more then the size of a rich person’s… More
Suffer the Little Children
On a night when it's actually quiet enough to hear my own thoughts, after the lights have gone dim, my eyes burn red from reading one too many pages.… 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
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