Paul Greenberg
Recent Stories by Paul Greenberg
Suicide of a newspaper
posted: 05/22/2013 5:13 a.m. Comment 1
When a city, or a state, loses its daily newspaper, something of its soul is lost with it. It’s as if ancient Athens had lost its agora, the forum at its center where scholars taught and great debates were held. Or if Jerusalem lost its Western Wall, its last standing connection with the ancient Temple where sacrifices were offered and prayers still fill the air.
COLUMN ONE: The mail
posted: 05/19/2013 3:05 a.m. Discuss
Dear Constant Reader, It was wholly a pleasure to get your letter noting some of the literary allusions in my columns.
Deja vu all over again
posted: 05/15/2013 5:01 a.m. Discuss
“We’re not going to have another Watergate in our lifetime. I’m sure.” —Bob Woodward “History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” —Attributed to Mark Twain Check your calendar. Is this 2013 or 1973? Is the president of the United States named Barack Obama or Richard M. Nixon? Because the latest series of unfolding scandals in Washington looks, sounds—and smells—awfully familiar.
COLUMN ONE: On leaving the hospital
posted: 05/12/2013 2:40 a.m. Discuss
It was just a little sunspot that needed removing.
COLUMNISTS: The silence of the lambs
posted: 05/08/2013 5:08 a.m. Comments 7
Kermit Gosnell. If you don’t recognize the name, that’s understandable. His trial in Philadelphia—on multiple counts of murder—has been covered extensively by the local papers.
COLUMN ONE: A herd of Irish bulls
posted: 05/05/2013 2:47 a.m. Comment 1
What are Irish bulls—a new breed of Herefords? Nope, they’re grandiloquent flights of prose that, when read literally, make no sense. Politicians are a particularly rich source of such phrases.
The inarticulate society
posted: 05/01/2013 4:01 a.m. Discuss
Whatever happened to the once strong, vital, unique American language? It hasn’t been seen in some time. Maybe because it’s been completely covered by the thicket of “you knows” and “whatevers” and various other verbal tics that by now have overwhelmed the poor thing. The way kudzu, given sufficient time and neglect, will completely hide a great oak.
COLUMN ONE: Simple gifts
posted: 04/28/2013 3:05 a.m. Comments 3
After great pain, a formal feeling comes. . .
Of Athens and Jerusalem
posted: 04/24/2013 2:43 a.m. Discuss
Dear Scholar, It was wholly a pleasure to get your thoughts about the current debate over illegal immigrants and how to approach the nettlesome challenge they represent to us—and we to them.
COLUMN ONE: The times we live in
posted: 04/21/2013 2:29 a.m. Comments 2
The president of the United States, being a gentleman and a man, paid a compliment to California’s attorney general—Kamala Harris—when both of them appeared at a Democratic fundraiser in that state. Indeed, he paid her several compliments when he addressed the crowd.
