He is our intellectual omnivore, exhilarating and infuriating, if not in equal parts at least with equal wit . . . he is dying of esophageal cancer, a fact he has faced with exceptional aplomb. This fifth and, one fears, possibly last collection of his essays is a reminder of all that will be missed when the cancer is finished with him . . . He regards God as a superstition employed by religions for the purpose of control and repression . . . Hitchens finds much to love about America, but on the evidence of this collection, he seems to find it mostly in books . . . At a time when America is experiencing a resurgent campaign to proclaim us a “Judeo-Christian nation,” Hitchens delights in the plentiful evidence that the founders were not all that religious and certainly not interested in creating a sectarian country. Read more . . .
Look back over the last hundred years and you’ll see the pattern. During periods when the very rich took home a much smaller proportion of total income — as in the Great Prosperity between 1947 and 1977 — the nation as a whole grew faster and median wages surged. Germany has grown faster than the United States for the last 15 years, and the gains have been more widely spread . . . How has Germany done it? Mainly by focusing like a laser on education (German math scores continue to extend their lead over American), and by maintaining strong labor unions . . . Reviving the middle class requires that we reverse the nation’s decades-long trend toward widening inequality. Read more . . .
Always Question Authority 