“Should we have affirmative action for conservatives?” This question, arresting enough by itself, becomes all the more so when the “we” in that question is The New York Times. It cropped up during a January 17 meeting in a nicely paneled Times conference room, billed as an “informal forum” at which various Times editors and […]
Books, Arts and Culture
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Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
The Fat and the Fire
Generation Extra Large: Rescuing Our Children from the Epidemic of Obesity by Lisa Tartamella, Elaine Herscher, and Chris Woolston (Basic Books, 272 pages, $25.00) Our Overweight Children: What Parents, Schools, and Communities Can Do to Control the Fatness Epidemic by Sharron Dalton (University of California Press, 292 pages, $24.95) Consuming Kids: The Hostile […]
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The Good Book
It has been almost 80 years since novelist Sinclair Lewis set his most iconic fictional creation, a hell-raiser turned hellfire preacher named Elmer Gantry, loose on an unsuspecting America. For a clergyman in his 70s, Gantry has proven to be remarkably hale and hearty. Op-ed writers and columnists lean continually on Lewis’ parson to represent […]
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The Coming Bush Bust
Neoconomy: George Bush’s Revolutionary Gamble with America’s Future by Daniel Altman (PublicAffairs, 290 pages, $26.95) Innovation and its Discontents: How Our Broken Patent System is Endangering Innovation and Progress, and What to Do About It by Adam Jaffe and Josh Lerner ()Princeton University Press, 256 pages, $29.95) Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican […]
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EU Got That Thing
The United States of Europe: The New Superpower and the End of American Supremacy by T.R. Reid (Penguin Books, 305 pages, $25.95) It is easy to scoff at the trappings of the European Union. Its flag of 12 gold stars on blue is bland. Its national holiday — Europe Day, commemorating the Schuman […]
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Action Liberalism
Eugene McCarthy: The Rise and Fall of Postwar American Liberalism by Dominic Sandbrook (Knopf, 416 pages, $25.95) The Fall of the House of Roosevelt: Brokers of Ideas and Power from FDR to LBJ by Michael Janeway (Columbia University Press, 284 pages, $27.50) The Guardians: Kingman Brewster, His Circle, and the Rise of the Liberal Establishment […]
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North Malice Forty
January brings the annual rituals of the National Football League (NFL) playoffs and the major college bowl games, and if any more evidence were needed about how football-obsessed a nation ours has become, consider the following: Of the top 10 television programs for 2003, three were football games, and a fourth was the Super Bowl […]
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Big-Box Battle
Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Workers’ Rights at Wal-Mart By Liza Featherstone • Basic Books • 336 pages • $25.00 When Betty Dukes, a 56-year-old African-American Wal-Mart worker in Pittsburg, California, first read about Sam Walton, the founder of the world’s largest retailer, she felt inspired. “I learned […]
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Then Came the Hammer
The Hammer: Tom DeLay, God, Money, and the Rise of the Republican Congress By Lou Dubose and Jan Reid • Public Affairs • 306 pages • $26.00 On Capitol Hill: The Struggle to Reform Congress and Its Consequences, 1948–2000 By Julian E. Zelizer • Cambridge University Press • 376 […]
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What’s Up, Docs?
“Who knows?” Ken Cordier asked, by way of an answer. It was a moment of uncharacteristic uncertainty for the Swift Boat Veterans and POWs for Truth member and former Vietnam War prisoner of war, who had just been asked by an audience member whether there are any POWs remaining under Vietnamese control. Cordier and his […]
