Features

Frank I. Michelman’s Brennan and Democracy 01.03.00 | reviewed by Jeremy Derfner Frank I. Michelman is a political theorist with a problem. He believes in democracy-all the people deciding for themselves how they will be governed. He also believes in the Consti tution, a 200-year-old document that sets down the fundamental rules of governance, “a […]

Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness was forecast by his 1938 novel La Nausee, in which a solitary named Antoine Roquentin, in the privacy of his journal, analyzes the agony of his existence: “La nausee … c’est moi.” The comedy Being John Malkovich opens with a similarly pain-infused intimacy, in a stunning solo “Dance of Despair […]

Here’s what I saw on TV last week: Good-looking, doe-eyed white youngster to his good-looking, doe-eyed sister: “It’s not like I’m still in the closet. Dad already knows I’m gay.” Click. Black guy in suit to white guy in suit: “This is important. I want to show the gay community that I stand out here […]

Who’d have ever thought that Texas, famous for finding all sorts of silly things to boast about, would suddenly find cause to brag about its educational achievements? Not a little, but a whole lot. And who’d have thought that what some people have come to call the Texas Miracle would be regarded with great respect, […]

The welfare rolls have fallen by almost half since 1994. To assess the impact of this dramatic change, both journalists and social scientists have been talking to families that have left the rolls. But these families are only half the story. Even without welfare reform, nearly half the single mothers on the rolls in 1994 […]

As the high-tech sector has grown as an industry, its bankroll of financial contributions to politicians has swollen as well (over $3.8 million so far this year). So it’s no surprise that presidential candidates are now flocking to Silicon Valley, or that firms like AOL and eBay are forming their own political action committees to […]

Works discussed in this essay: Republic Of Denial: Press, Politics, and Public Life, by Michael Janeway. Yale University Press; 216 pages. And now a word of discouragement. Abandon hopes, all ye who look to the nation’s journalists to lead the way through the valley of darkness. For the republic is in deep doo-doo, as […]

Works discussed in this essay: What Are Journalists For? by Jay Rosen. Yale University Press; 338 pages. Jay Rosen chronicling the so-called public journalism movement in 1999 is a little like Gloria Steinem doing the same for women’s liberation in 1969. As a key intellectual architect of the movement, Rosen can hardly be expected […]

Works discussed in this essay: The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times, by Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones. Little, Brown; 870 pages. On the evening of June 26, 1996, there was a rare public display of the American Establishment. The setting was the Metropolitan Museum of […]

The 29-year-old holding the microphone, Zack de la Rocha, is issuing calls, in only mildly metaphorical language and in quick succession, for war against capitalists, death to racists, justice for the oppressed, and possession by the workers of the means of production. He is backed by a guitarist and a rhythm section. He’s watched by […]