March 1997
In This Issue
Peter Edelman, “The Worst Thing Bill Clinton Has Done”; Ezekiel Emanuel, “Whose Right to Die?”; Matthew Gurewitsch, “An Audubon in Sound”; Lester C. Thurow, “The Revolution Upon Us”; and much more.
Articles
Whose Right to Die?
America should think again before pressing ahead with the legalization of physician-assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia
The Worst Thing Bill Clinton Has Done
A Clinton appointee who resigned in protest over the new welfare law explains why it is so bad and suggests how its worst effects could be mitigated.
What Jefferson Helps to Explain
A recent article in these pages argued that Thomas Jefferson was so deeply racist that he should be expelled from the American pantheon. But examining the problems this ambiguous figure poses for Americans reveals how the American principles of democracy and equality were entwined with the country's practice of slavery and racism, and helps to explain why America has had such difficulty creating an interracial society.
A War That Never Ends
The laws of grammar may be arbitrary, as those who would simply dismiss them assert. But arbitrary laws are just the ones that need enforcement.
And Now for the News
The disturbing freshness of Gibbon's Decline and Fall.
Vigilance
What's a dad to do in a world of sharp corners?
Welding With Children
He was just one old man with a little brown book of Bible stories. How could he compete with MTV, the Playboy Channel, and rental movies where people kill each other with no more thought than it would take to swat a fly?
Short Circuit
British Islets
The Isles of Scilly and the Channel Islands have the virtues of England--and some of their own.
An Audubon in Sound
Messiaen's radiant birdsongs, the crown of his creation, belong as much to the artist as to nature
The Revolution Upon Us
"All that is solid melts into air" -- Karl Marx could have been describing the forces unleashed by the first truly global economy.
The Laureate as Onlooker
China's Strategic Culture
77 North Washington Street
Letters
The Almanac
Word Court
