The Cockburns

It would take the pen of Swift to evoke the nauseating scenes of hypocrisy, bad faith and self-delusion on the White House lawn on September 13, crammed as it was with people who for long…

Unpronounceable Words

George McGovern and William R. Polk, Out of Iraq: A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now March 2007 Dear Andrew, I have finished McGovern and Polk’s primer on the catastrophe in Iraq and how to get…

Don’t Expect Applause

Tom Hayden was a major player in the antiwar movement of the 1960s as well as a familiar liberal and progressive  activist, commentator, and researcher since.  His last book is entitled,  Hell No:  The Forgotten…

Looking Deeply

Bella, I wrote this while on retreat at Angelique’s farmhouse in the country. Wish you could have been with us to discuss Cao Ngoc Phuong’s autobiography and enjoy the cool, late summer breezes. Perry  …

Reasons of State Or Reasons of Memory

First published in The Ecumenist, 1997.   Edward T. Linenthal, Preserving Memory:  The Struggle to Create America’s Holocaust Museum. New York:  Penguin USA, 1995. $27.95, U.S.A; $36.99, Canada.   Throughout this spring, there have been several…

A Lifetime of Letters

The Letters of Allen Ginsberg, edited by Bill Morgan (Da Capo Press, 2008) I have a file titled “Noam Chomsky” that contains several letters from the linguist during the 1990s. I first began writing him…