Trying to be a good citizen, I start from the beginning, and do what the government ads tell me to do: I open my computer, and type in www.medicare.gov. A screen comes up, asking me what I want: A personal health plan? A prescription drug card? A nursing home? Read on »

Funerals for 334 people, half of them children. Hundreds more — we may never know how many — in hospitals or “missing,” presumed dead. A town ravaged, a school destroyed, photographs of bloody children, wailing mothers. This is what the Chechen terrorists who attacked and destroyed a school in Beslan, southern Russia, achieved with their guns and bombs last week. Read on »

Some will judge the success of the Republican convention this week by the president’s speech. Others will try to gauge whether Sen. John McCain won over any moderate voters. Read on »

Last Sunday I had nothing to do. I’d run all my errands on Saturday. My children were away, staying with their grandparents. There was nothing happening in the outside world, or at least nothing I’m responsible for writing about. Energetically, I set about tackling what had seemed an insurmountable backlog of weeding. But when I’d finished, it was only 11 a.m. Read on »

“We also — we also need to lift the ban on stem cell research — (cheers, applause) and find cures that will help millions of Americans. (applause continues).”

Applause continues. That’s a direct quote from the transcript of the speech that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton gave at the Democratic convention last week. Read on »

Boston — “So, I bet it will be a lot colder when you get back there to Washington, D.C.”
We were driving through dense fog along the Pacific Coast, and the thermometer had hit 60, maybe 65 degrees. Actually, I said, July is usually a lot hotter in Washington. Read on »

“Richard Lugar, R-Indiana. Voted Yes. Our leading internationalist wants to send even more manufacturing jobs in Indiana overseas so that important diplomats at UN receptions will be nice to him.”
“Peter Fitzgerald, R-Illinois. Voted No last time. Fitzgerald leans Green and is retiring, which always encourages irresponsibility. So he needs shoring up.” Read on »

“Do you have a law certificate, and since when have you been recognized as a judge, after the occupation or before that?”
“Since the days of the previous regime and until now. The coalition authority asked me to hold this trial.”
“Then you are trying me by the order of the invasion forces. By what law are you trying me?
“I am trying you in accordance with the Iraqi law.”
“Then you are trying me by the law that I enacted…” Read on »

Who runs U.S. foreign policy? In a week of historic court cases, international summits and the imperial spectacle of an American viceroy handing over sovereignty, it seems an easy question. Foreign policy, as we all know, is controlled by what the British call the Great and the Good: senior judges and top ambassadors, senators and presidents, and famous names and famous faces. Read on »

Leaning against a wall near the front of the line, a girl in a fur-trimmed leather jacket looked as if someone had just dragged her from a party. Farther back, a man in a button-down shirt and government security-clearance card looked as if he’d just rushed over from work. Read on »