Americans Want To Be Protected,

The Mayans Were Right, As It Turns Out, When They Predicted The World Would End In 2012. It Was Just A Select World: The G.o.p. Universe Of Arrogant, Uptight, Entitled, Bossy, Retrogressive White Guys. [...] Instead Of Smallpox, Plagues, Drought And Conquistadors, The Republican Decline Will Be Traced To A Stubborn Refusal To Adapt To A World Where Poor People And Sick People And Black People And Brown People And Female People And Gay People Count.

We Are Riveted By The Soap Operas Of Public Lives. We Admire The Famous Most For What Makes Them Infamous: It Reassures Us That They Are Not Better And No Happier Than All The People With Their Noses Pressed Hard Against The Glass.

It Is An Astonishing Thing That Historians Will Look Back And Puzzle Over, That In The 21st Century, American Women Were Such Hunted Creatures. Even As Republicans Try To Wrestle Women Into Chastity Belts, The Vatican Is Trying To Muzzle American Nuns.

I Find Having A Column A Very Difficult Form Of Journalism. I'm Not A Natural Like Tom Friedman And Anna Quindlen.

I Strained To Remember Where I Was Or Even What I Was Wearing, Touching My Green Corduroy Jeans And Staring At The Exposed-brick Wall. As My Paranoia Deepened, I Became Convinced That I Had Died And No One Was Telling Me.