What Where

Transitioning from flying off the handle to attempting a reasoned argument—or at least shedding light on an issue—in about 800 to 900 words certainly made me think long and hard about what it was I wanted to write about.

When does entertainment become art? Is it not only artists but their audiences that must suffer to reach cultural watermarks?

Columnist Chas Carey finds it’s not so easy to create a political candidate without resorting to political tricks.

I’d like to speak about the more general issue of anonymous speech, both online and off. Change most effectively comes at a personal level. You can certainly wave your hand and dismiss the hateful things posted on anonymous Web sites or scribbled on bathroom walls as nothing you should worry about, but would you be so cavalier if it were you being accused of splurging on hookers and blow?

Studying the politics of today sometimes requires the sort of distance critics apply to Shakespeare’s works. But we would be terribly remiss if we forgot that Shakespeare, like us, was caught up in the affairs of his time as well.

(Congratulations/condolences)! Your candidate, (name of candidate), (may/may not) have (won/lost) on Super Tuesday, but it’s really your devotion to (his/her) cause of (your favorite form of “change,” i.e., “change we can believe in,” “change to experience we can count on,” or “loose change” for Ron Paul) that’s heartening to the democratic process in this country.

In 1942, Samuel Beckett fled Paris with his future wife just hours ahead of a Gestapo raid on their apartment. They traveled by foot across the French countryside, eventually hiding in the tiny village of Roussillon near Avignon.

If you’re a liberal arts student, chances are you should probably stop reading this column and get back to writing the papers that should, by all rights, be the bread, butter, and unrelenting curse of your education thus far.

In China, where information does not come freely or easily, the banana crop suffered from a supposed “Panama virus” outbreak this past spring.

As Michael Tomasky of The Guardian said yesterday, even Republicans are playing the capable game against the Bush administration, aiming for “a conservativism that is competent and comparatively honest.”

I can get you a candidate that fits that bill: Richard Nixon.