Revolutionary Thought

Thanks to science, we are confronted with new discoveries every day. But there are some things that science can’t teach us, and which we need to learn without its help. This point was made marvelously in an essay in the Atlantic monthly by Clancy Martin, who was discussing the increasing number of popular books written by…

In the book review section of the New York Times, Andrew Solomon poses a reflection on Adam Lanza, the deranged elementary school shooter in Connecticut: “If we want to stem violence, we need to begin by stemming despair.” How we will stem either of these problems I don’t know.  But what a great sentence!

In the New Yorker this July, Jon Lee Anderson wrote a fascinating article about Timbuktu, where Al Qaeda is working to become a legitimate political power. A scary story. But a beautifully written one. Take this paragraph when he introduces readers to the city in question: Timbuktu is a small, unlovely city in shades of…

In an eye opening article on Aborigines, Michael Finkel paints a colorful picture of the local landscape: The pilot flew low over the bush, the trees thin and straight and widely spaced, like a bad hair transplant. Maybe the Aussie government needs to invest in Tree Club for Men. (Click here to view comments)