SIGN IN to access the Harper’s archive
ALERT: Usernames and passwords from the old Harpers.org will no longer work. To create a new password and add or verify your email address, please sign in to customer care and select Email/Password Information. (To learn about the change, please read our FAQ.)
Not a subscriber? Subscribe today!
Create a login here. Forgot password? Forgot email? More help here.
Famously private, [Caroline] Kennedy nonetheless emerged during the Obama campaign as a political force of her own. Along the way, friends and colleagues say, she discovered that she had a higher tolerance than she thought for public appearances and a long-dormant desire for public service.
A “tolerance” for public appearances and a newly discovered desire for public service at the age of fifty-one? This is the best that New York can do?
Update: Geraldine Brooks has another important reason why Caroline Kennedy should be handed the New York senate seat:
She reads poetry. Anyone who doesn’t think that’s relevant needs to be reminded of William Carlos Williams’ observation: “It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for the lack of what is found there.”
More from Ken Silverstein:
Commentary — July 25, 2012, 2:20 pm
Washington Babylon — September 29, 2010, 11:37 am


Years of consideration preceding the inclusion of the word “phat” in Random House’s 1996 Compact Unabridged Dictionary:

Scientists created crash helmets that stink when cracked and fruit flies to whom blue light smells delicious.

In Belize, a construction company bulldozed a 2,300-year-old Mayan temple to make road fill.
“This is the heart of the magic factory, the place where medicine is infused with the miracles of science, and I’ve come to see how it’s done.”