Essays
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Page 66
An antidote for mass murder
To prevent mass murders, ask better questions
Can potential mass murderers be spotted in advance? Maybe. But the more important question is: Why are so many American kids growing up angry, antisocial and withdrawn? And we already possess the tools to cope with that problem.
Essays
4 minute read
Writers and copyright on the Internet
Writers are people, too, my friend: The case against Internet pirates
“Information wants to be free,” say Internet pirates. Their refusal to compensate writers (like me) for their work reflects a low opinion of writers and of information, too.
Essays
5 minute read
Mourning Campbell's Soup
There goes my childhood, or: Farewell, Campbell's Soup
People don't buy canned soup the way they used to, say the folks at Campbell's. It's neither gourmet nor heart-healthy nor organic; it's inedibly salty; and it can't be microwaved. But can haute cuisine replace the memory of a steaming bowl of hot goopy tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich on white bread?
Essays
4 minute read
Terry Williams case: Score one for justice
The condemned man and his prosecutors
In the latest installment of the Terry Williams murder case, Philadelphia Judge Teresa Sarmina delivered a scathing rebuke to the district attorney's office for concealing evidence that could have spared a man from death row. But District Attorney Seth Williams continues to press for the execution to proceed, thereby aligning himself with the city's often-sordid capital jurisprudence of the 1980s.
Essays
9 minute read
On spotting homosexuals
You're gay? How could I tell?
When gays come out of the closet, I'm never shocked, because I'm endowed with terrific gaydar— the ability to recognize homosexuals. Does this gift mean I might be a latent lesbian myself?
Essays
5 minute read
Remembrance of a first love
My kindergarten romance that haunts me to this day
Like most adults, I've had my share of encounters with death. But nothing haunts me quite like the senseless loss of my first childhood love, perhaps because the emotions I felt then were so genuine.
Essays
4 minute read
Pennsylvania's rusty machinery of death
Welcome to the Middle Ages, or: Capital punishment, Pennsylvania style
The recent clemency hearing in Harrisburg for Death Row prisoner Terry Williams, Pennsylvania's first such hearing in 50 years, was like a trip much further back in time. Whether or not you favor the death penalty, no one seems to like the system, including those who enforce it.
Essays
7 minute read
Louis Kahn's last masterpiece
Louis Kahn's life after death
Louis Kahn, a great, humble and idealistic architect, died broke and obscure in 1974. But his vision continues to bear fruit, most recently in New York City's new Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park.
Essays
4 minute read
What my five-year-old could teach the Tea Party
Found: Hope for the future, in my 80s
What can an octogenarian father possibly learn from his five-year-old son? If the subject is human evolution, the answer is: plenty.
Essays
3 minute read
"Girls' and the new feminism (a reply)
If women are liberated, how come we're not happy?
Thanks to those pioneering feminists of the '70s, women are now free to pursue careers just like men. But my 20-something generation is discovering the emotional costs of conventional success.
Essays
3 minute read