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Gertrude Stein lay dying. Stomach cancer had finally forced her to undergo surgery in an American hospital on the fringes of Paris. Preparing for the operation, she asked her lifelong companion, Alice B. Toklas, “What is the answer?” Alice said nothing. Time passed. Gertrude spoke again:
Letters
The Hardest Word
As an Australian, I want to add to Margaret Silf’s “Sorry Business” (4/21): The apology given by our prime minister was extremely significant because it was delivered on behalf of the government to the indigenous peoples wronged by government policy. Because the wrong was a collective one (i.e., a social sin), it needed a response from no less than our national leader. The country had been waiting for many years for the apology to be given, and the feeling was one of great relief as well as understanding by many who had previously failed to understand the hurt.
Julie Purdey
One of the less noted contributions of the Second Vatican Council is its brief treatment of atheism in its “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.” In that groundbreaking document, the council avoided the shrill condemnations of atheism that were so common in preconcili
Have the new atheists adopted a faith of their own?
One of the best homilies I ever heard was based on the first chapter of the Book of Jonah. The preacher described the situation on board a ship that had run into a terrible storm on the way to Tarshish and a confrontation that ensued between some pagan sailors and a prophet of the true God. Surely,
Books
May 05, 2008 issueAttention all Democratic candidates campaign managers media consultants and constituency organizers If there is not a dog-eared frequently underlined copy of Amy Sullivan rsquo s The Party Faithful on your bookshelf soon please quit Sullivan who is the nation editor at Time magazine writes
In All Things
Robert Novak famous for publishing the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame has decided to use his morning column to pose as the head of the Vatican s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith He notes that several pro-choice politicians received communion at the papal Masses in Washington and Ne
Of Many Things
Awaiting a spring that is coming slowly to the Big Apple, I fast-forward my thoughts and summon the words of the 18th-century poet James Thomson: “…who can paint/ like Nature? Can imagination boast,/ amid its gay creation, hues like hers?” Signs and wonders will soon abound in all
Columns
Is the religious right a spent force in American politics? There seems to be a growing consensus that it is, based in part on John McCain’s rather easy dispatch of Mike Huckabee in the Republican primaries. Huckabee, a preacher and unabashed advocate for the evangelical movement, certainly tou