Category: Homepage
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One True Sentence
It was wonderful to walk down the long flights of stairs knowing that I’d had good luck working. I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day. But sometimes when I…
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Strange Political Seasons
I keep hearing how the Congressional race in New York is, somehow, a referendum on the presidency of Barack Obama. Usually, I would scoff at such fatuous prognosticating. But then, it’s been a strange political season. So, why not? This one will end when Obama leaves office. Things will return back to normal. The only…
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President Obama's Remarks on the 10th Anniversary of 9/11
The Bible tells us, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” Ten years ago, America confronted one of our darkest nights. Mighty towers crumbled. Black smoke billowed up from the Pentagon. Airplane wreckage smoldered on a Pennsylvania field. Friends and neighbors, sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters…
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A Brief Thought on 9/11
I had not left home yet to go to work that day when an in-law called to tell me to turn on the television. One heavily-fueled jet had already slammed into one tower. People were dying, desperate to be saved from whatever this was, wherever this attack came from. I was a reporter at the…
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To Salve the Hearts of a Wounded Land
Obama Arizona Memorial Speech: FULL TEXT Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you very much. Please, please be seated. (Applause.) To the families of those we’ve lost; to all who called them friends; to the students of this university, the public servants who are gathered here, the people of Tucson and the people of Arizona: I have…
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Olbermann's SPECIAL COMMENT
Finally as promised, a Special Comment tonight on the inaccurately described “Ground Zero mosque.” “They came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t…
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Simplicity
I have been interviewing scientists and other experts for the Natural Resources Defense Council‘s Visionary Speaker Series. The pieces run online for NRDC’s magazine OnEarth. Each interview has been an education. My most recent one is with sustainability expert Jim Merkel. The piece is online here. Love0 Share Tweet Share Pin
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"A Tiny Ripple of Hope"
I came across this speech (Facebook, then Daily Kos) and thought I should share: Mr. Chancellor, Mr. Vice Chancellor, Professor Robertson, Mr. Diamond, Mr. Daniel, and Ladies and Gentlemen I come here this evening because of my deep interest and affection for a land settled by the Dutch in the mid-seventeenth century, then taken over…
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Souter's Harvard Talk
Text of Justice David Souter’s Harvard Commencement remarks (as delivered) When I was younger, I used to hear Harvard stories from a member of the class of 1885. Back then, old graduates of the College who could get to Cambridge on Commencement Day didn’t wait for reunion years to come back to the Yard. They’d…