Live from Ramallah: The Theater of the Absurd

In the late 1940s, a group of playwrights started a movement called the Theater of the Absurd, based on the Existentialist notion that life is rationally incomprehensible. According to one description, practitioners of the Theater of the Absurd sought “to convey...

Cuba’s Bravest and Best

HAVANA — “There are no banned books in Cuba,” Fidel Castro declared in February 1998, “only those which we have no money to buy.” Of course, books *are* banned in Cuba; just try to locate one that criticizes Castro. Bookstores and public...

On Bataan and Balikatan

To your average Howard Stern fan, the Philippines is nothing more than a carnival land of shoe-crazy, dog-eating jungle dwellers who are a perennial source of cheap jokes. Some Americans know better. Just ask the thousands of surviving U.S. soldiers who fought in the...

The Welfare State Grand Slam

The welfare state enjoyed a stellar week. First, the Victims Compensation Fund, set up by Congress, announced compensation averaging $1.85 million for the families of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. While deducting life insurance and some pension benefits, the payout...