The Russian drama began at the end of 1991, when the Soviet Union mercifully ended. Russia and 14 other new countries emerged from the ruins of the Soviet Union. Every one of those 15 new states faced a profound historical, economic, financial, socia...
When I started blogging in 2004, I responded to every comment no matter how nasty the reader was. I was generally polite, believing that these critics would be so charmed by my professionalism that they would see the error of their misogynist ways an...
A new political-entertainment class has moved into the noisy void once occupied by the sage pontiffs of yore, a class just as polarized as our partisan divide: one side holding up a fun-house mirror to folly, the other side reveling in its own warped...
A generation ago, or two, when there were three channels, plus PBS, and when you needed - when you needed 15 million people to make a living, the media could focus on the broad country. And most people had no choice about getting political informatio...
Political reporters no longer get to decide what's news. The days when a minister gave briefings to a dozen lobby correspondents, and thereby dictated the next day's headlines, are over. Now, a thousand bloggers decide for themselves what is interest...
Tolerance. In all my years of debating politics and religion no mind was changed with derision and no thought convicted by way of harshness. You have no right to demand tolerance while deriding others and their beliefs in the process. Want tolerance?...
Even tax breaks that are supposed to help the middle class too often skew toward the wealthy. Consider the mortgage interest deduction. While political leaders in both parties have long considered it untouchable, it actually helps those at the top of...
The mythic voice rising from literature and art allows us to be humane. We are not humane because of political power, or education, or even religion. We are humane because we recognize the humanity of others. The writer and the artist appeal to that ...
Language is political. That's why you and me, my Brother and Sister, that's why we supposed to choke our natural self into the weird, lying, barbarous, unreal, white speech and writing habits that the schools lay down like holy law.
One thing that I'm predicting is that there will be a vigorous and futile defense of suburbia and all its entitlements, no matter what reality is telling us to do. And this will translate into a lot of political mischief. You can quote me: Americans ...
The capital of the United States is the home to the best of the worst humanity has to offer. The most corrupt, the most deceitful, the most tyrannical, the most greedy, and the most evil rise through the ranks of the political machines and eventually...
Jim Garrison: Mr. Shaw, have you ever been a contract agent with the Central Intelligence Agency? Clay Shaw aka Clay Bertrand: [smiles politely] And if I was, Mr. Garrison... do you think I would be here today... talking to somebody like you?
June Jordan, who died of cancer in 2002, was a brilliant, fierce, radical, and frequently furious poet. We were friends for thirty years. Not once in that time did she step back from what was transpiring politically and morally in the world. She spok...
With everybody having a Facebook and a Twitter, I feel like regular people consider themselves stars. It's a live, real-time upload of every time we buy a pair of socks, the most telling sign that we're losing our politeness. When you know everything...
Holly Gennero McClane: After all your posturing, all your little speeches, you're nothing but a common thief. Hans Gruber: I am an exceptional thief, Mrs. McClane. And since I'm moving up to kidnapping, you should be more polite.
Commander Denniston: Well, you realize that six hundred miles away from London there's this nasty little chap called Hitler who wants to engulf Europe in tyranny. Alan Turing: Politics isn't really my area of expertise.
Prime Minister: I'm not sure that politics and dating really go together. The President: Really? I never found that. Prime Minister: Yeah, well, the difference is you're still sickeningly handsome, whereas I look increasingly like my Aunt Mildred.
It used to be that readers were relegated because they considered themselves far above society, and so the metaphor of the ivory tower developed. Now there's still this idea that the reader doesn't take part in the social game and in politics, the re...
We live in a culture that's been hijacked by the management consultant ethos. We want everything boiled down to a Power Point slide. We want metrics and 'show me the numbers.' That runs counter to the immensely complex nature of so many social, econo...
Whether you're talking about Shakespeare or, you know, if you look at Greek tragedies. I mean, every playwright, every songwriter, every artist who's ever sat down and been moved to create something, has been living in a context. A political moment t...
We know that U.S. voters, and world leaders, allow Obama extraordinary leeway when it comes to deadly drone strikes, precisely because of his politics, character and background. (We are talking about a man, after all, who won the Nobel Peace Prize wh...
