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There were problems in our most recent presidential election that prevented some people from voting: poll slowdowns, registration glitches, dirty tricks, and much more. (I don’t mean to be dismissive: there are nearly 29,000 incidents reported in the Election Incident Reporting System database.) But what if, when our next election day rolls around, you and …

Superstitious me; I’m knocking wood as I write this, but: I feel the distinct rumble of a cultural shift gaining momentum. Really. Consider, for example, the notable news that all 8 of the Democratic Senators voting in the Judiciary Committee on Wednesday opposed Alberto Gonzales’ confirmation as U.S. Attorney General. The 13 members of Congress …

George Bush’s second inaugural address set me to ruminating on the question of political rhetoric. Indeed, there was so much to chew on, I’ve been processing for nearly a week and I’m still not quite ready to swallow it. Like religious speech, political speech is infinitely elastic. Like religious speech, it traffics both in exalted …

Condoleezza Rice is a work of art, her own exquisite creation. As we all by now know, as a child she excelled in music and sports, skipping two grades and achieving a baccalaureate by 19. Yesterday, NPR commentators were awestruck in admiration at her self-containment. At a break they remarked that while she’d come into …

This weekend I revisited the writings of Martin Luther King, looking for something to read in his honor at a gathering of friends. In my mind, he stands for eloquent justice in the face of stubborn privilege, and as far as it goes, that’s true. But taking him literally, he stands so much more for …

I have a birthday coming up in a few days, and because I’ve been very, very good this year, I’ve decided to make it an eight-day birthday festival. (What I want for my birthday is a column! If you can give me an introduction to an editor who might be interested in regular dispatches from …

When I started writing “2005″ on things last week, I had a surreal feeling: this isn’t the future I was expecting. The turn of the 21st century was such a big deal for my generation, a longed-for milestone. When I was a child in the fifties, we thought that by the year 2000 people would …

According to many reports, the outpouring of donations for tsunami relief in Asia is setting records, especially for online donations. Yesterday, NPR’s “Talk of The Nation” featured a call-in with international aid executives. As I drove around town on my errands, a man telephoned to ask whether American taxpayers were going to have to make …