As Communism loses its menacing posture and its threat recedes globally. Western concentration is beginning to focus increasingly on an old and inscrutable foe: Islam. The vast natural resources of the Middle East, the birthplace of Islam, coupled with the inherent political instability of the . . . . Continue Reading »
Some books—the detective novel is the most obvious genre—must be read as they are written, front to back. Peeking ahead spoils everything. Others, Hebrew texts and now Robert Jay Lifton and Eric Markusen’s The Genocidal Mentality are better approached (though for different . . . . Continue Reading »
For most people in America, all those not familiar with the complicated ideological positioning on the right end of the political spectrum, the term “conservative” evokes images of the board room, the country club, and the Episcopal church located not far from the latter. In other words, the . . . . Continue Reading »
The Emergence of Jewish Theology in Americaby robert g. goldyindiana university press, 149 pages, $25 Judaism was born in the Fertile Crescent when a young Semite, deeply troubled by his own sense of incompleteness and guilt, answered God’s call, and in so doing started a chosen people that would . . . . Continue Reading »
As I was splitting a pair of queens to double my sawbuck bet, someone said “He’s here,” and here he was—four bodyguards to part the waves, a blonde bimbo on each arm with whom to swim. I swiveled in my chair to greet him, held out my hand—brushed back by one of his goons. . . . . Continue Reading »
In that house of quiet dying, through still sheers that turn the day to gray, only two chairs of six are sat upon, the bed no longer shared. She smiles, a 5 x 10 on the television top, he laughs, a young man upon the mantle. But, air unmoving from dining room to kitchen old woman watches TV alone, . . . . Continue Reading »
On card after card he sees it. Along with a harsh identity photograph And his preposterous signature, A black line struggling into a name. The face is Irish, and his name. And even some of the wallet cards, The printer prayer to St. John Neumann, Bohemian bishop in . . . . Continue Reading »
Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity by charles taylor harvard university press, 601 pages, $29.95 To describe Sources of the Self as a learned book would be a little like describing Michael Jordan as a skilled basketball player: accurate, but hardly adequate to the . . . . Continue Reading »
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