Don’t play around the course he got the took the rook the crook the snook all were pasted upon him like a long vicious learning there is all of Africa all of night all the every trace of sweet hurt distilled like cobalt turned into night the distant moon a door to where no one … Read more

The geo-political condition is febrile, with ordinary people around the world demanding independence from empires, colonizers, home-grown dictators and vulture capitalists. On the other side of the power divide, vested interests hang tight with their puppets, controlling oil, minerals—the world’s natural assets. The UN watches as the US and Russia bark slogans at each other, … Read more

The government shutdown and debt ceiling mess deflected attention from the Syria crisis. But Eugene Goodheart’s careful analysis of that situation is still on time. We begin his latest dispatch on Obama’s “trimming” with a forward-looking “postscript” the author added to his original piece. As for Obama’s ambivalence about going to war and his openness … Read more

Eugene Goodheart’s analysis of the Syrian quandary doesn’t take in the story’s latest twists, but it comprehends the president’s humane, cautious approach to the issue. Goodheart’s piece amounts to an addendum to the case he makes in his new book, Holding the Center: In Defense of Political Trimming, which places Obama’s default stance within a … Read more

In London, England a young black man called Stephen Lawrence is walking home with his friend when they are set upon by a gang of white youths in a racist attack which leaves Stephen dead. His mother works tirelessly for 20 years pushing the police to pursue the killers and make sure the guilty parties … Read more

Yesterday’s Papers An elderly friend of mine—a white southern liberal—once told me a tale that helped me grasp how far his kind traveled in the 60s. He came from a close-knit military family and he’s never doubted his father was one of the wisest—and bravest—of men. Yet one day, as my friend was reading a … Read more

It’s 1973, I am 15 years old and yearning to live in Flatbush. It’s a better neighbourhood than where I am and I think to myself I bet the landlords there make sure that the boiler works in the winter. I earn $40 a month for sweeping and mopping the floors and stairs of the … Read more