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The “S” Word Lives  

At the Democratic Socialists of America’s biannual convention last weekend, the young new members making up most of the attendance were out and proud about their socialism. It’s been a long time coming.











The Typo Slayer  

My first typo trauma came when I was a teenaged summer clerk-typist for the public information office of the state mental health department. Ever since I’d learned to read, I’d been hooked on print. Typing and proofing press releases about …



Alumni Weekend  

The hype for my forty-fifth college reunion this past June started months in advance. The school, one of those that “changes lives,” is the archetypal small liberal arts college. It was the place, my parents promised, that would prepare me …



The Last Page  

The 1950s: The food is salty, starchy, soothing. Milk arrives in glass bottles; eggs are delivered by a farmer. We can our own tomatoes and fruit. Frozen food is too expensive. I feed sugar cubes to the junkman’s horse. The …



Lost in the Melting Pot  

I’m in the receiving line with my mother at my aunt’s wake. The stifling funeral parlor is crowded with mourners, and I recognize former neighbors from my aunt’s all-Italian neighborhood. My mother tenses as an elderly man approaches, murmurs his …



Standing With or Standing By  

“DON’T FORGET your cape,” my brother gibed on the phone. “Will the workshops be at night?” a colleague chortled. “Is this like a Star Trek convention?” asked a bewildered friend as I prepared to leave for the biannual conference devoted …





Endless Retribution  

Richard Nixon showed that there really are second (and third) acts in American life, but Congress didn’t get the memo, and so Jean Montrevil may be denied his own American Dream. A Haitian citizen who came to the United States …



The Ask  

If you’re not afraid to ask for money, says nonprofit fundraising guru Kim Klein, then you weren’t born in this country or you’re a child. The taboo against talking about money, much less asking for it, has survived even as …



Last One Out  

The big question used to be, when did you leave the Communist Party? And the answer was always, too late, because the questioner had either left before you or had never joined. In this campaign season, the question is, why …