While I was driving through Washington, D.C., recently, a maddeningly familiar scene was unfolding. The GPS seemed determined to ensure that we were never on the same road for more than 1,000 feet, didn’t understand how to navigate a roundabout, instructed me to turn the wrong way down a one-way street — and I was growing so irritated that my wife was threatening me with divorce. Fortunately, at that point, I remembered something I had read that afternoon in the excellent new book of George Mason University economics professor Tyler Cowen, the memory of which sparked a directive: Work with …
A New World of Work
Average Is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation, by Tyler Cowen (Dutton, 305 pp., $26.95)
In This Issue
Articles
The Great Moderate
President Obama has returned to one of his favorite themes in response to the partial shutdown of the federal government and the prospect that the government might have to default ...
When It’s Already Broken . . .
‘We’re going to do a challenge,” said Jon Stewart to Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius on his Daily Show in early October. “I’m going to try and download ...
Stuff Liberal White Ladies Like
Fort Worth, Texas — If you are looking for the end of the line for the Sanctimonious White Lady party, you might very well find it here in Dallas’s slightly ...
Hope Springs Cautiously
Like the climate, British politics has seasons. The conference season, which opens the political year, is in September and October, beginning with the Trades Union Congress conference, ending with the ...
Features
An American Story
Oklahoma City, Okla. — Harold Hamm is a major oilman, the biggest in the United States. He’s also a significant contributor to our national debate over energy policy. But beyond ...
The Nth State
The United States of America was born after a group of reckless colonial traitors added their signatures and “sacred honor” to a declaration of political separation and backed it up ...
What’s Right with Sam Brownback
Topeka, Kan. — Whenever Sam Brownback leaves the governor’s office in the state capitol of Kansas, he faces an iconic image of John Brown. The big mural of the militant ...
Books, Arts & Manners
The Messianic Style
The chapter titles in A. Scott Berg’s life of Woodrow Wilson — “Advent,” “Baptism,” “Isaiah,” “Paul,” “Ascension,” “Resurrection,” to name a few — are, when coupled with the Biblical epigraphs, ...
A New World of Work
While I was driving through Washington, D.C., recently, a maddeningly familiar scene was unfolding. The GPS seemed determined to ensure that we were never on the same road for more ...
The War Lover
In the opening decades of the 20th century, Gabriele D’Annunzio was one of the most famous Italians alive. Writing came easily to him and was the basis of his reputation. ...
The Deepest Truths
David Bentley Hart is probably the greatest living scholarly defender of religious thought. The title of his 2009 book Atheist Delusions is nicely descriptive: The book pits the actual Christian ...
Bad Judgment
It’s been over a quarter-century since Robert Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court became a defining moment in the confirmation of federal judges. Since the distinguished judge and former Yale ...
Before Oprah
We have been together a long time, Gentle Reader, so you will not be surprised by my reaction to this enormous biography of the menacing extrovert who wrote How to ...
Sections
Letters
A Taboo Worth Keeping
I am the author of one of the pieces Jonah Goldberg addresses in his article “The Taboo Cliché” (September 30). While I don’t speak for the other ...
The Week
‐ Our World War II vets surely remember when “To the barricades!” had an entirely different meaning.
‐ The Obama administration celebrated the shutdown face-off by barricading open-air public monuments and ...
Transcript from the Al Jazeera Political Talk Show The Al-Irshad Group
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Host Al-Irshad: Issue One! Tweet, Tweet Went the Bird of Peace! In the wake of the Revolutionary Islamic Republic’s election, President Hassan Rouhani has embarked on a ...
Welcome to Obamacare
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Welcome to the ACA WellBeing Market Access-Point Portal v.1.01. If your previous session was interrupted, ...
Poetry
SOME PAINTED SCENES
Each segment of the year makes painted scenes,
Creating sonnets. Thin and icy greens,
Translucent, stuck in frigid air
Hold promises, stuck in a frozen stare,
And every edge that melts slips ...
The Zombie State
There’s a certain amount of lingo that comes with the provision of health care. In most developed countries, these words are “doctor,” “nurse,” “scalpel,” “appendix,” that sort of thing. But ...
