Our Crowd: In the Arena and in the News
Mort Walker, Historian
There’s a moment in Mort Walker’s “Beetle Bailey,” from decades ago, when the innocent Zero asks the intellectual Plato why he owns so many books. Plato explains proudly that “all the wisdom of the ages” can be found between their covers. Zero responds, “What happens if a couple of pages get stuck together?” Mort’s own […]
Studies in Power: An Interview with Robert Caro
A curious security guard at a venerable Manhattan office building near Columbus Circle inquired what sort of work the man I was visiting did—was he a lawyer? “No,” I answered. “Robert Caro is an author. He writes books.” He certainly does. Caro has won two Pulitzer Prizes and two National Book Awards. When the Society of American Historians […]
Searching for an Alzheimer’s cure while my father slips away
One night several years ago, I checked out of a hotel in Cairo and hailed a cab to the airport. It was just after 1am. I had been in Egypt for a week, researching a story on the Muslim Brotherhood, and I had come down with a nasty bug. A blood vessel in my right […]
20 of the most powerful things Oprah has ever said – that will leave you seriously inspired
Today is Oprah Winfrey‘s big day – and there sure is plenty to celebrate. After being handed the honourable Cecil B. de Mille Award at the Golden Globes and giving an extremely touching and powerful acceptance speech, people were quickly reminded of Oprah’s excellence and thus begun the Oprah for 2020 presidency campaign. The […]
My Woody Allen Problem
On the morning of the Oscar nominations, I was chatting with a stranger about movies, as one does. The conversation turned to Woody Allen. “My son has seen all his movies, and he thinks he’s innocent,” she said. “I’ve seen all his movies, and I think he’s guilty,” I said. There was not much else […]
What Mary Oliver’s Critics Don’t Understand
“Mary Oliver is saving my life,” Paul Chowder, the title character of Nicholson Baker’s novel “The Anthologist,” scrawls in the margins of Oliver’s “New and Selected Poems, Volume One.” A struggling poet, Chowder is suffering from a severe case of writer’s block. His girlfriend, with whom he’s lived for eight years, has just left him, […]
Holocaust Stories Preserved In Holograms
Holocaust survivor Sam Harris has told the story of how he survived the Holocaust hundreds of times. He’s talked about his experience in the Nazis’ concentration camps with school groups and in videos for oral history archives. He even wrote a children’s book. But when he sat down to tell his story in Los Angeles […]
My cupboard runneth over
DECEMBER 20, 2017 —The day my kitchen cabinet tried to kill me began like any other day. I had just padded downstairs in my robe to start a pot of coffee when I heard an ominous creak. Then an angry roar. Then, as some previously untapped instinct kicked in and I backed across the kitchen – […]
A Traditional Christmas Needs A Real Downtown
The Christmas season is once again upon us. For many, “it’s the most wonderful time of the year.” But as our culture continues to squeeze the most out of the holiday, many of us have seen it become a relentless rat race. Presents need to be bought, pageants need to be held, dinners must be cooked, […]
Under New Tax Plan, the Cost of Aging Could Rise
In the coming days, a small group of Republicans will meet in Washington to try to settle a simple question: Should their revised tax bill eliminate a deduction for medical expenses and take away thousands of dollars each year from many people who are sick and, often, old? The two competing tax bills that will […]
My Generation Thought Women Were Empowered. Did We Deceive Ourselves?
When I started out in journalism in the 1970s, attitudes toward sexual harassment among the token women sprinkled about in newsrooms were nearly antithetical to those we’ve heard from the women who have come forth in recent weeks with a flood of anguished revelations. My first job was at the London bureau of a prominent […]
Hiroshima Survivor Remembers
Setsuko Thurlow will jointly accept the Nobel Peace Prize this Sunday with ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a group she’s worked with since it was launched several years ago. Thurlow survived the bombing of Hiroshima and shared her story with NPR’s Kelly McEvers.This story originally aired on May 26, 2016 on All […]