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American Diogenes
Lately, a few readers have asked why I spend so much time writing about Donald Trump. It can be summed up in one word. Actually, Jon Stewart told us when he signed off for the final time on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show; a show that began seventeen years earlier as a comedy riff on the news of the day,...
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April 1, 2016
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The Latest... And Often Greatest
Teaching an Algorithm Right from Wrong
In a quiet office in San Francisco, a philosopher is deep in thought, attempting something that until recently belonged to science fiction. She is trying...
Now, More Than Ever
In moments of national crisis, a nation discovers whether its founding principles are merely words on paper, or values worth defending. As the 150th anniversary...
Peace Is Not an Elective
I had just learned of the passing of a good friend and colleague, Colman McCarthy when the memories began to return. Before I ever met...
Revelations
In 1927, Sinclair Lewis gave America a character it did not want to recognize in the mirror: Elmer Gantry. Gantry is loud, magnetic, insatiable —...
The Story of Chips, and The Cost of Looking Away
It’s just a photograph: a wartime dog sitting alert, ears up, wearing a military harness. But the story about a World War II sentry dog...
It’s Time to Talk About Respect
A cancer has been growing in our national life, so embedded in our culture that we’ve stopped acknowledging it. In the 1940s and the decades...