IN THE April 2, 2012, ISSUE
An American Gospel
Americans are an enterprising people, and we start churches like we start businesses. (It is not always possible to tell the two apart.) There are more than twice as many ...
Also In This Issue
Articles
Romney’s Hidden Strength
After the 2008 elections, liberal bloggers chortled that the Republicans were becoming a “rump regional party” (the phrase became a cliché) that couldn’t compete outside the South. The 2010 midterms ...
The Demise of Section 5
Minority-voting-rights activists are all aflutter over the possibility that the Supreme Court will soon hold an important section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act unconstitutional — or at least in ...
Past The Pump
Driven by new technologies and discoveries — and by rising global demand — America’s recoverable reserves of crude oil are soaring. And U.S. oil production would be soaring, too, were ...
The Interrupted Narrator
It’s an unnatural act, to write an obituary for a 43-year-old man. But Andrew Breitbart, my old friend who died suddenly on March 1, was a master of the unexpected, ...
Features
An American Gospel
Americans are an enterprising people, and we start churches like we start businesses. (It is not always possible to tell the two apart.) There are more than twice as many ...
The Sandra Sideshow
By November, nobody is going to remember who Sandra Fluke is. That’s what Republicans need to keep in mind as they judge the political impact of opposing the Obama administration’s ...
Sexual Counterrevolution
Planned Parenthood vs. the Susan G. Komen Foundation. The HHS mandate vs. the Constitution. Rush Limbaugh vs. President Obama (and just about everybody else). From the point of view of ...
Peace, They Say
What is this thing called love?” goes an old song. In the same spirit, we might ask, “What is this thing called peace?” Everyone wants it, everyone talks about it, ...
Books, Arts & Manners
A First-Rate Scandal
With the centennial of Richard Nixon’s birth coming up in 2013, it is fitting that a reevaluation of the most reviled Republican president of the 20th century is under way. ...
Saving Sovereignty
American progressives from Woodrow Wilson and John Dewey to Barack Obama and Ruth Bader Ginsburg have long expressed dissatisfaction with what they see as the constraints of an outmoded 18th-century ...
Worth a Kingdom
The English don’t mind if their king has a mistress provided she is what they call “a good sort.” This can mean English, a daughter of the people, and happy-go-lucky, ...
Horton Hears a Dud
There was a time, somewhere around the age of five, when my favorite Dr. Seuss book was The Butter Battle Book. This preference probably owed less to the book’s quality ...
Desperate but Not Serious
‘In Berlin the situation is serious but not desperate; in Vienna, the situation is desperate but not serious.” This quip was heard around Central Europe in the closing days of ...
Apologia for Terror
David Gilbert is not as well known as Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, his old comrades in the Weather Underground, but he does deserve notoriety: He is a convicted murderer ...
Sections
Letters
A War in Photos
Reading John Derbyshire’s story “O Valiant Hearts” (March 5) on the significance of his father’s picture with Private David Seaton, I was reminded of a picture from ...
The Week
‐ Newt Gingrich has a flair for the dramatic, except when the stage directions read “Exit stage right.”
‐ Many Republicans have bought the Democratic/media line that the administration’s attack on ...
Olive Garden State
The Internet has made it so easy to make fun of nice little old ladies. Kids today have no idea how much effort it used to take. In the old ...
From the Twitter Stream of Kim Jong Un, @youthcaptain
Tweeps! You choose! Which look sexier on me? Boxers, briefs, or bikini briefs? Check it out: http://twitpic.com/a3wr7q Probably NSFW, though.
Anyone know if @sandrafluke is single?
Uncle says I need to lay ...
Poetry
WHAT’S REALLY WRONG
Admit it: what disturbs you isn’t flaws
within the grand design, not that or this
ironic fealty to effect and cause
within the cosmic lottery. Dismiss
the phony, brief, and adolescent shock
at ...
Bringing It Home
A year or two back, I started using the city of Bangalore as an all-purpose shorthand for emerging economies. If you’ve heard me on air or in person, you’ll know ...