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Terry Southern: "Den Hopper called me from Larry Flynt’s: 'I've sent you a first-class round-trip ticket, and I want you to come out. I have a proposition for you. Take my word, it’s a good thing. I’ll meet the plane.' And so I went out without knowing anything except that Den had recommended it. Den did meet me at the airport and he said, 'Man, you’re going to dig this scene. This is fantastic!'"

On April 20, 2005, George W. Bush signed into law a bankruptcy bill that had been pending in Congress for eight years. The bill was written by credit-industry lobbyists, shopped to their friends in Congress, and supported by tens of millions of dollars in lobbying and campaign contributions. It might be dismissed as just one more piece of highly focused special-interest legislation except for the damaging vision of middle-class America that it reinforced: irresponsible people consumed by appetites for goods they don’t need, who think little of cost, and who would rather file for bankruptcy than repay their lawful debts.

May 6, 2011 By Robert Niles No comments |

Some of you may remember I did series of posts (here, here, here and here) about my time in Virginia last August. Working

In the weeks since President Hosni Mubarak was forced to resign, on February 11, the same coalition that led the uprising in Tahrir Square has frequently and vigorously taken action to continue the…

John Angus Mcphee was born in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1931, attended college in his hometown, and still lives there today. He tells stories when he drives through town; memories shadow him…

Since 1978, the price of tuition at US colleges has increased over 900 percent, 650 points above inflation. To put that in number in perspective, housing prices, the bubble that nearly burst the US economy, then the global one, increased only fifty points above the Consumer Price Index during those years. But while college applicants’ faith in the value of higher education has only increased, employers’ has declined.

Bill Moyers interviews David Simon, April 2011 David Simon would be happy to find out that The Wire was hyperbolic and ridiculous, and that the American Century is still to come.…

On his first morning in China, former NBA point guard Stephon Marbury went to the lobby of his hotel to attend what his…