Just two pages into the book “Unbroken,” its protagonist is in the water, hiding beneath the deteriorating life raft in which he has been drifting across the Pacific Ocean for almost a month. Overhead, Japanese bombers are circling back to strafe him a second time. And sharks are approaching from below. Death is coming for […]

Relax. This is not a slippery slope. So Justices Samuel Alito writing for the majority and Anthony Kennedy writing in concurrence, take pains to assure us in the wake of the Supreme Court’s latest disastrous decision. The same august tribunal that gutted the Voting Rights Act and opened the doors for unlimited money from unknown […]

“But I have promises to keep And miles to go before I sleep” — Robert Frost Sen. Richard Russell called it a work of “manifold evils.” Sen. Barry Goldwater called it a “threat to the very essence” of America. Rep. Howard Smith called it a “monstrous instrument of oppression.” It was the Civil Rights Act […]

His family doesn’t know if Zack actually heard any of it firsthand. Maybe he was at that City Council meeting (some people swear he was) or maybe not. Either way, they figure he probably knew about the things that were said, how his neighbors in the small town of Norman, Okla., paraded to the microphone […]

The signs were all there. This is what jumps out at you in perusing postmortems of the two greatest surprise attacks in American history. In the days and weeks leading up to Dec. 7, 1941 and Sept. 11, 2001, there were numerous clues that seem neon in hindsight, but which no one pursued. Or, as […]

He remembered everything about that night. He remembered the song they slow danced to — “You Are My Lady.” He remembered the play of the lights in her hair as he held her. He remembered her eyes as she looked up at him. He remembered wanting to spend the rest of his life with her. […]

I am standing at the front door, locked out of my own house. If this were a movie, it’d be raining. Thankfully, this isn’t so it isn’t. But the reality is embarrassing enough without any Hollywood embellishments. You see, we have this digital lock. To open it, you input a numeric code. We bought it […]

How about some good news for a change? Last month, I wrote about the kidnapping of nearly 300 Nigerian schoolgirls by a band of putative men who style themselves “Boko Haram” — “Western Education is Forbidden.” Taken in concert with the 2012 shooting of Malala Yousafzai in Pakistan and the 2008 acid attack on Shamsia […]

A few days ago, the NRA inadvertently said something reasonable. This, in response to a series of protests in Texas. It seems advocates of the right to carry firearms openly have taken to showing up en masse at public places — coffee shops, museums, restaurants, etc. — toting shotguns and assault rifles. So say you’re […]