The comedian Pete Holmes used to do a bit about how Facebook was actually a giant government conspiracy to get us to give up our privacy rights. Three years ago, it seemed funny. That a shockingly large percentage of Americans believe Edward Snowden ought to be tried for high crimes – treason is the offense...
In “The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11,” Lawrence Wright’s monumental examination of the jihadist movement that threatens the civilized world, characters other than Osama Bin-Laden emerge as the network’s chief ideologues. The handful of Americans who still read newspapers regularly are familiar with names like Zarqawi and Ayman al-Zawahiri. Less known, but...
All of us remember where we were and what we were doing when news reached us that our country was under attack. (I was playing golf, and my playing partner got an emergency message on his beeper.) The hijacking and murders in Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, and New York changed our nation forever. In the weeks...
Hope RekindledThis past week has given us more hope for our diseased republic than any other time in 50+ years of paying attention. Observing and participating in a long-overdue peaceful uprising, occupying the streets, feeling the righteous energy of people of all ages, colors, faiths, and wealth (or lack thereof), has…
Clarinetist Glenn Dickson, master of klezmer, has made a solo recording, “Wider Than the Sky,” that’s been on perpetual repeat at our home office. Using over-dubs and electronic digital effects, Dickson fills the aural soundscape with a rich melange of chordal textures supporting the melody. His celebrated virtuosity is subsumed here to long, elegiac musical...
