CURRENT WISDOM
Jackasses, Assorted
New York Times ac ir Another neurotic moment proving once again that sibling rivalry happens: I had wanted to tell Will I was gay since I was 12. As twins, we shared everything back then:...
...March 2004) shington Confessions of a cad and a cheat, columnist Richard Cohen, supporting the candidacy of Sen...
...February 28, 2004) New York Magazine Miss Naomi Wolf filthy-minded authoress of The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women and Promiscuities, passes into advanced middle age and her Victorian phase: In the late fall of 1983, professor Harold Bloom did something banal, human, and destructive: He put his hand on a student's inner thigh—a student whom he was tasked with teaching and grading...
...February 10, 2004) doston GlopLiberal paragon Derrick Z. Jackson, columnist for the estimable Globe ofBoston, comminates on Washington's most ham-fisted demonstration of excessive force since August 9,1945: With no weapons, no ties, and no truth, the capture of Saddam was merely the most massive and irresponsible police raid in modern times...
...So when we met for lunch more than a year ago, I thought that finally coming out to him would close the distance that had grown between us...
...Now, at 28, we had never been further apart...
...Civilian deaths constituted justifiable homicide...
...Here is why I am telling this story now: I began, nearly a year ago, to try—privately—to start a conversation withmy alma mater that would reassure me that steps had been taken in the ensuing years to ensure that unwanted sexual advances of this sort weren't still occurring...
...At first I was unhappy...
...In arrogance, we boasted, "We got him...
...Everything except this...
...I expected Yale to be responsive...
...Then an awkward pause...
...We have taught the next generation that many wrongs equal a right...
...at Guantanamo Bay base, Mohammed said: "They gave me a good time in Cuba...
...As twins, we shared everything back then: clothes, gadgets, thoughts, secrets...
...And unlike most seasoned politicians, who huddle with pollsters and consultants before daring a decision or opinion, Clark follows his own compass...
...After he settled in, however, he was left to enjoy stimulating school work, good food and prayer...
...The answer is that the choice of focus of this film was a highly political choice—and that is why it has become so popular with right-wing Christians who have twisted the message of Christianity to allow it to become a defense of their willingness to support budget cuts for the needy, to spend hundreds of billions on a bloated military, to support the U.S...
...America was again above the law...
...Why not focus on the Resurrection with its message of hope overcoming despair...
...The capture of this dictator, driven by the poison of lies, turned America itself into a dictator...
...John Pierre Kerry, whose decorated service in Vietnam surpassed Cohen's by all of four months: I was, though, lucky enough to get into a National Guard unit in the nick of time, about a day before I was drafted...
...February 10, 2004) The Nati Miss Barbara Lawton, lieutenant governor of Wisconsin, explains the genius behind Generalissimo Wesley Clark's multitudinous apologies and clarifications during his near suicidal run for the presidential nomination: This first-time candidate is a quick study...
...Why not focus on Jesus' message that the rich will have a hard time getting into heaven, or that the real way you are treating God can be measured by how much caring you show for taking care of the poor...
...For two or three days [after I arrived in Cuba] I was confused but later the Americans were so nice to me...
...February 29, 2004) On the tiny organ of Hillary Rodham Clinton's favorite swami, Michael Lerner, the improbable tale of how Hollywood has fallen to the clean-cut forces of "right-wing Christians": Jesus was a great Jewish teacher whose message of love, kindness, gentleness and compassion are a sidelight in the Mel Gibson movie, a prop to the main focus which is on pain, cruelty and suffering...
...When he goes "off message," it's to integrate unwieldy but central concerns into the conversation...
...One-word answers...
...He is hard to pin down for brunch or a drink...
...Or that the truly blessed are the peacemakers...
...They gave me good food with fruit and water for ablutions and prayer," he said yesterday in Naw Zad, a remote market town in southern Afghanistan close to his home village and 300 miles south-west of Kabul, the capital...
...I did my basic and advanced training (combat engineer) and returned to my unit...
...I asked him about his recent trip...
...March 1, 2004) merican Prospect From the funereal pages of the American Prospect, progressive America's last hope before Global Warming barbecues us all, glad tidings—at least for our side: Flip your TV over to Fox, open the pages of The Washington Times or a conservative magazine, or direct your browser to the burgeoning network of conservative Web sites and you'll see that the right-wing hate machine is alive and well...
...After nine months and many calls and e-mails, I was shocked to conclude that the atmosphere of collusion that had helped to keep me quiet twenty years ago was still intact—as secretive as a Masonic lodge...
...The student was me, a 20-year-old senior at Yale...
...February 2, 2004) Sunday Telegraph An intrepidjoumalist from London's Sunday Telegraph interviews former Guantanamo detainee Mohammed Ismael, age 15, now back in Afghanistan and still nostalgic for his posh stay at the Ritz: In a first interview with any of the three juveniles held by the U.S...
...And when he's done, he's taken thorny issues like race or patriotism that often drive a wedge into communities and given us a way to think and speak about them as a people united...
...Short questions...
...I was supposed to attend weekly drills and summer camp, but I found them inconvenient...
...economic and military expansion to the rest of the world...
...Will was one of the last to know...
...The shame is that we feel none for how we got him...
...He asked me about work...
...When we were kids, we created our own language, whispering to each other as our bewildered parents looked on...
...Partly it was his fault...
...December 17, 2003) Mohammed, an unemployed Afghan farmer, found the surroundings in Cuba at first baffling...
...For two years or so, I played a perfectly legal form of hooky To show you what a mess the Guard was at the time, I even got paid for all the meetings I missed...
...I "moved" to California and then "moved" back to New York, establishing a confusing paper trail that led, really, nowhere...
...We broke in without a search warrant...
...They were very nice to me, giving me English lessons...
Vol. 37 • April 2004 • No. 3
