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Software Week Taking the Weekend Off
The previously announced Software Week will have a full week's run -- but after a several-day hiatus, because of emergent "real" writing chores. Thanks for many suggestions and queries that have come...
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When I Am King
There will be only one capital offense: using a leaf-blower.More precisely, hiring people to use them. On weekend mornings when you are off in Cap d'Antibes or somewhere. And I won't even get into the...
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A Weekend Scene for Labor Day
From a friend in the San Juan Islands of Washington state this weekend, a commuter plane bringing families from Seattle: While living in Seattle ten years ago, I did training in float planes at this...
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Bob Edwards Show
During Bob Edwards's many years as host of NPR's Morning Edition, I was often doing commentaries for the program and sometimes had the chance to talk with him on air. In his current incarnation as host...
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In (Further) Praise of Float Planes
I mentioned over the weekend that I hate noisy leaf blowers but love noisy float planes. I offered my own rationale for the double standard, but I am heartened by confirming testimony from someone who...
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Software Week #2: Syncing with Scrivener
Software week resumes (previously here and here). OK, it may not correspond to an actual "week," but it should go through at least seven installments. This one continues the theme of how you can use a...
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Castro: I Was Wrong During Cuban Missile Crisis
Jeffrey Goldberg's online account just now of his recent visit with Fidel Castro, in Havana, is fascinating in many ways. But the part that got my attention comes at the end, when Castro expresses his...
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Toward the 9/11 Anniversary: 'Captive to This Single Threat'
We're nearing the annual retrospectives on what we've learned, forgotten, done right, done wrong in the years since the original attacks. George Friedman, of Stratfor, is an early entry with an essay...
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Software Week #2a: Another Way to Sync With Scrivener
Later in this exciting series, I plan a comparison of various cloud-based sync systems-- Mozy, Dropbox, SugarSync, etc -- plus the built-in sync features available in an increasing number of programs....
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Reprise: David Foster Wallace on Legacy of 9/11
Recently I mentioned George Friedman's Stratfor essay arguing that, as we reflect on the al Qaeda attacks nine years ago this weekend, Americans should muster the intellectual and political courage to...
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A Chinese-American View of the 'Mosque' and the Muslim Menace
Among the thousands of reasons I have valued living outside the U.S. for extended periods: having a chance to observe controversies whose intensity is obvious but that turn on issues (and passions)...
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Quick Retorts on "Chinese-American View of the Mosque"
Not all readers buy the idea that a reader whose parents were born in China, but herself was born and raised in the US, should find so mystifying the nativist side of the American character that is...
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More 'Lessons' of 9/11: Resilience, Not Fear
In interviews I conducted for this magazine six years ago, which led to this article early in 2005 and this one in 2006, I heard again and again a theme that was familiar to historians and military...
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Asian-Americans, the "Mosque" Furor, and Immigrant Idealism
Previously here and here. I'm quickly cycling out these dispatches about the meaning of outsider status, insider-acceptance, security, diversity, resilience, etc because they bear on two big questions...
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One More on Fear and Resilience: TSA as 'Asthma'
Previously here, here, here, and here. Last installment before it becomes 9/11/10. First, from a reader outside the country, about the good side of the reaction nine years ago:I live in Toronto. A week...
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A Harsh Thing I Should Have Said (Martin Peretz Dept)
Usually you regret the harsh things you say more than the harsh things you decide not to say. At least, that's how it usually turns out for me.Here's an exception. Earlier this week I wrote an item...
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"Anti-Muslim Bigotry Walking the Land" (Peretz Dept)
I've gotten a lot of mail in the past two days on the indefensible Martin Peretz statement that "frankly, Muslim life is cheap," following this earlier item. For work reasons, I'm not in a position to...
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A Primer on Bigotry
(Please see two updates at the end.) This is a tussle I never imagined I would get into, as I pointed out the first time. But I've gotten a variety of messages and seen a variety of online response...
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In-House News: Tech Channel, Pol & Prose
I'm late in congratulating Alexis Madrigal and the entire Atlantic online staff on the debut this week of the Atlantic Tech Channel, which Alexis is running. This is the sort of all-fronts, informed...
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From the Archives: "Countdown to a Meltdown" 2005
Five years ago, when the housing market and the stock market were still both going strong, the Atlantic ran as a cover story my article "Countdown to a Meltdown." It was an imagined history of the...
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