Feature
Way Down South in Dixie
Southerners often misinterpret their personal despair as the result of something taken from their ancestors nearly two centuries ago, when, if they could see beyond that dumbfounding nostalgia, they would realize that we never lost anything we really had.
{More »}The models of the world I saw in every classroom as i was growing up were called globes. Each one was a smooth sphere, except for a deep groove about the middle which was supposed to tell us where the equator was and a metal axis that allowed it to spin on its base. And [...]
Over the last two weeks, the demonstrations in Iran have evolved into a cause far beyond the presidential elections. The debate over whether Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Mir Hussein Moussavi won is progressively losing relevance. The elections, and the government’s handling of them, have stirred an underlying public dissatisfaction with the corruption and ineptness that has [...]
Before the rising star began to fall again, before the invention of the boy band, before I learned how to read, I followed in my brother’s footsteps as a Michael Jackson fan. Instead of going to our bedrooms, we would sometimes dance around in our footie pajamas to songs like “Thriller.”
“Thriller” is a product inextricably [...]
Culture
What you oughta know about Alanis Morissette and her safely rebellious lyrics
The Odyssey took place amid one chain of islands; the forty-fourth president of the United States was born on another. In this long poem, which takes place on a third chain of islands, Nobel laureate Derek Walcott examines the power of the sea to connect and divide.
Poetry by Liana Stillman
International
An un-democratic democracy
Photographs by Aditya Ajit Parwatkar
What the U.S.–and the rest of the world–has to gain by helping India.
Domestic
Why vampires are cold and zombies hot, hot, hot
The White House appears ready to move on immigration, not simply for policy reasons, or to add support among liberals and Latinos, but also to gain business support.
Some languages are just more modern than others