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The New Republic | June 23, 1997 SONYA McIntyre-Handy, a Unitarian, felt hounded by Christians at work. Her colleagues at a Virginia state social-service agency conducted a prayer session around her desk, complete with raised hands and speaking in tongues; they left a “letter from Jesus” on her desk. Her supervisors, she claimed, asked her…
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Slate.com | May 30, 1997 LOCKED in the Cabinet, Robert Reich’s new memoir of his years as labor secretary in the Clinton administration, is an engaging policy memoir: insightful, often witty and, what’s most unusual for wonk kiss and tells, easy to read, partly because it’s told in long stretches of well-written dialogue that add…
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The New Republic | May 6, 1996 WHATEVER else marriage may or may not be, it is certainly falling apart. Half of today’s marriages end in divorce, and, far more costly, many never begin–leaving mothers poor, children fatherless and neighborhoods chaotic. With timing worthy of Neville Chamberlain, homosexuals have chosen this moment to press for…
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There is no compelling reason to exclude homosexual couples from marriage, and several compelling reasons to include them The Economist | January 4, 1996 MARRIAGE may be for the ages—but it changes by the year. And never, perhaps, has it changed as quickly as since the 1960s. In western law, wives are now equal rather than subordinate…
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The Economist, December 23, 1995[Like most Economist articles, this was published anonymously.] WHEN George Bush was America’s president and Daniel Ortega was Nicaragua’s, Mr Ortega threatened to cancel a local peace deal that the Americans had painstakingly brokered. Hearing the news, an enraged Mr Bush grasped for an insult worthy of the offence. “That little man,” he snarled…
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Harper’s Magazine, May 1995 THE WAR on prejudice is now, in all likelihood, the most uncontroversial social movement in America. Opposition to “hate speech,” formerly identified with the liberal left, has become a bipartisan piety. In the past year, groups and factions that agree on nothing else have agreed that the public expression of any…
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The Economist | April 1, 1995[Like most Economist articles, this was published anonymously. Well, almost anonymously.] Although this newspaper has always been partial to numbers, it has not been as diligent as it could be in the reporting of mathematics. Today, to set this right, we inaugurate a new column on advances in the mathematical arts, named…
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The New Republic, May 16, 1994 Nixon revisionism was probably inevitable, and no doubt will continue stronger than ever in the wake of its subject’s death on April 22. The old caricatures–Nixon as villainous schemer, mad bomber, domestic underachiever– were bound to collapse, because they were built more on Nixon’s personality than on his record.…
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National Journal | September 5, 1992 ON APRIL 10, a group of kamikaze Senators marched to the chamber floor with an alternative budget. What they got back was a stark demonstration of the forces that are petrifying postwar democracy. “We do not seek to end entitlements, or even to reduce them,” Sen. Charles S. Robb,…
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National Journal | May 18, 1991 [In 1993, partly as a result of publicity stemming from this article, Congress abolished the wool and mohair subsidies. They were reinstated, in a somewhat different form, in subsequent farm bills.] WE KNEW you were wondering, and the answer is no. Mohair is not the hair of a mo. It…