The Pill at 50: Sex, Freedom and Paradox
Afghanistan: A Tale of Soldiers and a School
It was, in fact, a no-brainer, a perfect metaphor. The Taliban closed schools; the Americans opened them.
Should Kids Be Bribed to Do Well in School?
In recent years, hundreds of schools have made these transactions more businesslike, experimenting with paying kids with cold, hard cash for showing up or getting good grades or, in at least one case, going another day without getting pregnant. I have not met a child who does not admire this trend. But it makes adults profoundly uncomfortable.
The iPad Launch: Can Steve Jobs Do It Again?
“I think the experience of using an iPad is going to be profound for many people,” Jobs says. “I really do. Genuinely profound.” That rings a bell. “I’ve heard it said that this is the device for you,” I reply. “The one that will change everything.” “When people see how immersive the experience is,” Jobs says, “how directly you engage with it … the only word is magical.”
How Tom Hanks Became America’s Historian in Chief
Why Washington Is Tied Up in Knots
How to Live 100 Years
Starting Over: Can Obama Revive His Agenda?
‘I Have Seen the Promised Land’
Excerpt from At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years 1965-68, on Martin Luther King Jr.’s final days:
“King spent the early weeks of the new year flying around the country trying to drum up support for his poverty campaign but he found one of his toughest audiences back home in Atlanta.
“With his aide Andrew Young, King took a midnight flight through Dallas and reached home early on Jan. 15. They arrived late and exhausted for King’s morning presentation at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he was the pastor. Some 60 members of the SCLC staff were gathered from scattered posts with their travel possessions, ready to disperse straight from Atlanta to recruiting assignments for the poverty campaign. SCLC executive director William Rutherford’s summons had described a mandatory workshop of crisp final instructions—’it is imperative’—but King labored more broadly to overcome festering doubt and confusion about why they must go to Washington. He thanked his father Daddy King and others for fill-in speeches to cover his tardiness. He made a faltering joke about the tepid response of friends with their coats still on—’they act like it’s cold in my church’—and betrayed rare unease in a defensive speech.”