Common Wonders
Previous Columns

Hope and Vision (November 13) — We have our country back now we have to hold onto it

Our Fragile Dream (November 6) — “I feel as though we’ve gotten our country back”

The Time Has Come (October 30) — Join me and vote for change and expanded political horizons

Redesigning Democracy (October 23) — We seem to be stuck in a state of self-congratulatory denial

Our National Juncture (October 16) — What it comes down to is us vs. anybody

Brace Yourself (October 9) — GOP can't win unless it suppresses the vote

The War to Promote Terror (October 2) — What it is, indeed, is racism

The Deep Cry for Integrity (September 25) — An old sin now demands its wages

Goo-Goo America (September 18) — Republicans declare all-out war on democracy

An Embedded Prayer (September 11) — Bombs, children and the war on terror

Logical Consequences (September 4) — When you believe in war, sooner or later you bring it home

State of Denial (August 28) — Clear Channel foams our intellectual runway

Predator and Prey (August 21) — Humanity and compassion drown in the blood of war

Civilian Diplomacy (August 14) — If we know enough, we’ll never go to war again

No Name for the River (August 7) — How the media complicate racial awareness

Citizens of the World (July 31) — We've been summoned to build a lasting peace

The Next New Yorker Cover (July 24) — Satire should do more than kick the wounded

Stigmatizing War (July 17, 2008) —Banning cluster bombs is just a start

Steel Rain (July 10, 2008) — We can’t wage war without a wide moral latitude

Words and Bullets (July 3, 2008) — The "debate" about gun control misses the point

An Urgency of Joy (June 26, 2008) — Culture of peace still a radical leap

The Shadow Platform (June 19, 2008) — Fighting the smears against Obama will take a higher consciousness

Be the Media (June 12, 2008) — The nation is fed up with military-industrial patriotism

Now What? (June 5, 2008) — McClellan gets the truth rolling, but Iran is in our sights

The Flip Side of Glory (May 29, 2008) — Why is the military unable to control rape?

The Politics of Peace (May 22, 2008) — Savor the victory with a sense of humor

The Penta-Pundits (May 15, 2008) — What about the media's real conflict of interest?

Apology Denied (May 8, 2008) — Once we recognize their humanity, we've lost

The Possible Future (May 1, 2008) — Defusing violence, one bump at a time

Shattering the War Consensus (April 24, 2008) — Cindy Sheehan stands up to the crack house crowd

The Done Deal (April 17, 2008) — Can Obama shatter the tacit covenant of American politics?

Truth's Wreckage (April 10, 2008) — The surge is killing us

Fire and Race (April 3, 2008) — Jeremiah Wright puts the audacity in Obama's message of hope

Keep the Republic (March 27, 2008) — Now is the time to start standing tough for fair elections

Where War Meets Peace (March 20, 2008) — Winter Soldiers challenge America with the truth about Iraq

The Fear Fundamentalists (March 13, 2008) — The future is calling on that 3 a.m. phone

Losing the Future (March 6, 2008) — What else could we do with $3 trillion?

The State Religion (February 28, 2008) — The myth of national security stands between us and the future

The Hillary Nutcracker (February 21, 2008) — Is it sexism, 'sexism lite' or just a castrated media?

Snow and Miracles (February 14, 2008) — Sometimes recognition comes only under duress

Defeat Without End (January 31, 2008) — 'Why is our economy tanking? The war, the war, the war'

Conspiracy Theorist (January 24, 2008) — Why would anybody cheat in an election?

The Eternal Underdog (January 17, 2008) — From the savage redskin to the Gulf of Tonkin to the Strait of Hormuz

Primary Concerns (January 10, 2008) — Hoisting a few red flags about the elections

Pseudo-Reporting (January 3, 2008) — Don't be docile and uninformed

Beginner's Mind (December 20, 2007) — Too often, we stick to what we know — and slowly stagnate

Tinsel and Values (December 20, 2007) — Immobilized on Iraq, Congress stands up to the assault on Christmas

Crooked Timber (December 13, 2007) — Are we the hunter or are we the prey?

Iraq's Million (December 6, 2007) — Nations do war better than anything else

Trial by Fire Hose (November 29, 2007) — Peace kids scare up some undead racism

The Devalued Currency of Truth (November 22, 2007) — Army recognizes vet's PTSD with a set of handcuffs

Baghdad in Middle America (November 15, 2007) — 'They're all coming back with PTSD!'

Used Razor Blades (November 8, 2007) — Our "dominion over all the earth" has made it a toxic landfill

Crash Course in Empathy (November 1, 2007) — Does our definition of justice really contain no possibility of healing?

A Nation Downwind (October 25, 2007) — A-bomb testing program's guinea pigs get a voice onstage

Pre-Existing Conditions (October 18, 2007) — Pact with the devil comes wrapped in many gaudy causes

An Adolescent Choice (October 11, 2007) — Healing is no more than a blank stare in our system of justice

The American Id (October 4, 2007) — Prophets preach from the 10 items or less lane

This Hallowed Landmark (September 27, 2007) — Media audition Ahmadinejad as the new face of evil

Sanity in Tiny Nibbles (September 20, 2007) — State laws signal official awareness of DU health hazards

Martin's World (September 13, 2007) — “We all have this feeling Martin’s really here at this point for a reason”

The Prerequisite for Salvation (September 6, 2007) — Breaking the cycle of violence begins with eye contact

Presence of Mind (August 30, 2007) — Piercing the myth of redemptive violence

The Nanny State (August 23, 2007) — Rev up that nasal sing-song

Creative Destruction (August 16, 2007) — Welcome to George W. Bush's moral gutter

Disciples of Yossarian (August 9, 2007) — Candidates for president of the status quo dare not be naive

Mission Gone Bad (August 2, 2007) — You have permission to call it retreat

Caged Priest (July 26, 2007) — To our eternal shame, we let inmates dispense "justice"

Homeland Conspiracy (July 19, 2007) — Why have we have always been at level orange?

The Secular God (July 12, 2007) — Let's release Him from the captivity of religion

Gorilla Suit (July 5, 2007) — We don’t want to hurt the president’s feelings, do we?

The Violence Interrupters (June 28, 2007) — Finding hope in the technology of peace

The Hearts of All Sane Men (June 21, 2007) — Let's hoist the MIA flag for our nation's soul

Belief and Doubt (June 14, 2007) — The 'antiwar movement,' like the universe itself, is mostly empty space

The Conscience of Los Alamos (June 7, 2007) — Staring down the true believers of the nuclear establishment

Live Weight (May 31, 2007) — Lilacs and ashes, birth and death

Dancing With Fear (May 24, 2007) — Metaphor of war disrupts choreography of life

Blair's Law (May 17, 2007) — Promoting a world that has outgrown violence

Rescuing the Democrats (May 10, 2007) — Moms take on war and the pols who compromise with it

The Crusaders (May 3, 2007) — “The Christian Taliban is running the Department of Defense”

Green Beacon (April 26, 2007) — 'Solartopia' and the death of King CONG

Season of Grief (April 19, 2007) — Let peace bud in the human heart and the halls of Congress

Thwarted Warrior (April 12, 2007) — Depleted uranium and the mystery of sick and dying Gulf War vets

Devil Weed (April 5, 2007) — Dark shadow of ignorance hangs over Bernie's farm

Symbolism and Duct Tape (March 29, 2007) — How come recruitment video games don't have names like "Friendly Fire" and "Rape"?

Mission Accomplished (March 22, 2007) — The American gun is still cocked

Hemorrhaging Nirvana (March 15, 2007) — 'I am trillions of cells sharing a common mind — I am life!'

Count the Quagmires (March 8, 2007) — How did Bush sucker the reality-based community for so long?

Hold the Mushrooms (March 1, 2007) — Cancellation of Divine Strake is a great victory, at a tragically high cost

Stale Glory (February 22, 2007) — I'd be surprised if the next war were announced in the shadow of the Wall

Sorry About That (February 15, 2007) — At the center of every war is a gaping hole

A World That Works For Everybody (February 8, 2007) — Our times cry out for a Department of Peace

A New Manifest Destiny (February 1, 2007) — A vision of peace must replace the void at our political center

Heaven Waited (January 25, 2007) — That's the funny thing about miracles

'Un-Inventing' Nukes (January 18, 2007) — Beware the self-perpetuating logic of incompetence

A Different Story (January 11, 2007) — What's it going to take for us to grow up?

Celebrity Carnage (January 4, 2007) — When do we take our turn in the dock?

Live Spring (December 28, 2006) — Inquisitive child proves reality of unseen world

Ignorant Armies (December 21, 2006) — We keep waging slaughter on the same tired pretexts

Rules of Engagement (December 14, 2006) — We should know what moral restraints, if any, our soldiers are given

Electronic Treason (December 7, 2006) — 2004 revisited: Mechanical 'glitches' once again single out Democratic voters

Blood Fatigue (November 30, 2006) — The public couldn't stomach a reinstated draft

The Peace Majority (November 23, 2006) — We've been preparing for war for the past six thousand years or so

The Vote Protectors (November 16, 2006) — The fairness of the election is more important than the results.

The Drama of Empty Numbers (November 9, 2006) — Has the Bush administration really gotten its comeuppance?

The Cry of Our Inner Gandhi (October 26, 2006) — What's so scary about a Department of Peace?

A Few Corpses Past 'Whatever' (October 19, 2006) — Lancet study says Iraq war has killed 650,000; Bush calls it Hoboken

Naked and Afraid (October 12, 2006) — It's time to end the pretense of cluelessness about school violence

The Headless Crisis (October 5, 2006) — Unprecedented election fraud demands we stretch the meaning of citizenship

'This Cannot Be' (September 28, 2006) — Voter ID bill would roll back civil rights movement

Reclaiming Omelas (September 21, 2006) — To what value system has Bush pledged his allegiance?

The Worst of the Worst (September 14, 2006) — Civilization itself is under lock and key at Guantanamo

Comic-book Patriotism (September 7, 2006) — Remember when we murdered Iran's democracy? Remember 9/11?

Twenty Gandhis (August 31, 2006) — Reclaiming 9/11 through satyagraha

Semper Why? (August 24, 2006) — When an enemy isn't available, a new recruit will do

The Smell of Fear (August 17, 2006) — Bush administration 'fights' terrorism with incompetence, treason

Smiling Buddha (August 10, 2006) — The nuclear game's newest player used to be known as 'collateral damage'

Blowback From a Bad War (August 3, 2006) — White supremacists, gangbangers get invaluable training in Iraq

Birth Pangs (July 27, 2006) — Welcome to the gates of hell and madness

The Shadow Report (July 20, 2006) — A little comeuppance for our trillion-watt arrogance

Wounded to the soul (July 13, 2006) — Fasting as a way to protest war and violence

Hadji Girl (July 6, 2006) — Racism is just another poison we're spreading in Iraq

Spreading Cancer (June 29, 2006) — Depleted uranium turns Bush's lies into high-tech horror

Shushing Big Money (June 22, 2006) — Citizens deal a blow to 'corporate personhood'

A Vote of No Confidence (June 15, 2006) — Democracy left to languish in living rooms, garages

Truth Hound (June 8, 2006) — The First Amendment isn't for sissies

Uproar Downwind (June 1, 2006) — Rumsfeld's big bang scuttled, for now, by angry locals

Stay the Lie (May 25, 2006) — 'You just keep moving, you shoot and go'

Shadow America (May 18, 2006) — 'Worst president in history' may force us to reclaim our principles

Divine Strake (May 11, 2006) — Downwinders block DoD's big bang in Nevada — for now

Crossing the Border (May 4, 2006) — May Day marchers expand the meaning of being an American

The FEMA Gap (April 27, 2006) — Shadima and the ambiguity of giving

A Sense of Urgency (April 20, 2006) — 'If we want to end this war, we'll have to replace every Harman in Congress with a Winograd'

How Big Is My God? (April 13, 2006) — The cruel stupidity of criminalizing the undocumented

Closing the Secret School (April 6, 2006) — Suddenly there's fertile ground for human rights in South America

Faith-Based Voting (March 30, 2006) — 'Without procedural integrity, you have nothing'

The Definition of Insanity (March 23, 2006) — When Bush champions human dignity, God help us all

Trust us (March 16, 2006) — Take this box and stuff it

Whistling Diebold (March 9, 2006) — What price will we exact from a hero of democracy?

Bush and Gandhi (March 2, 2006) — Humanity comes to a fork in the road

Safe to be racist (February 23, 2006) — Muhammad cartoon controversy has nothing to do with free speech

The Nader Effect (February 16, 2006) — Democrats are chasing ghosts instead of Republicans

Give peace a vote (February 9, 2006) — Democrats could begin crossing the line back into values politics

Hole in the future (February 2, 2006) — True cost of Iraq war is beyond calculation

Relevant Saint (January 26, 2006) — Martin Luther King has more to give us than a three-day weekend

The Polite Majority (January 19, 2006) — How far can we be pushed?

Birth of Awareness (January 12, 2006) — My Lai hero forces us to open our eyes to reality of war

Primal smirk (January 5, 2006) — The War God has his eyes on Iran — can we stop him?

Values in shrink-wrap — (December 29, 2005) Maybe it's time to take Christmas back from Wal-Mart

Fear of the Devil — (December 22, 2005) This maze leads to a trap without an exit

Panic attack — (December 15, 2005) Hair-trigger response only spreads terror

Flickering Dreams of Peace — (December 8, 2005) All you have to do is wake up

Inconvenient Journalists — (December 1, 2005) With liberators like this, who needs Saddam?

Poll Shock — (November 24, 2005) Off by 40 points, newspaper's predictions may be disturbingly accurate

Shake and Bake — (November 17, 2005) U.S. finally confesses to using of white phosphorus in Fallujah

A Crime Without a Name — (November 10, 2005) 'Concern' about election fraud is useless without guts and anger

The Future Eaters — (November 3, 2005) Killing tomorrow, one nerve gas canister at a time

Impeachable offense — (October 27, 2005) Why must justice for a monumental crime grasp at straws?

‘Name This Body Part’ — (October 20, 2005) If Iraq is a democracy, why can't it vote to kick the U.S. out?

The God of Torture — (October 13, 2005) Standing against human degradation is not a weakness

Ballot and Soul — (October 6, 2005) Democracy needs a revolution every generation

Unsheathed future — (September 29, 2005) New Orleans is a toxic cesspool; be wary of an 'all-clear' from a government that lies

Soul work — (September 22, 2005) Putting the arts in service of humanity's collective consciousness

Circles of Hell — (September 15, 2005) New Orleans gives us a glimpse of Bush's vision for America

Our Third World — (September 8, 2005) We're like any other developing country that lets its people die

Pat and God — (September 1, 2005) We're stuck with a fool as our truthteller

Outraged nurturers — (August 25, 2005) Grieving moms have long made strutting warriors tremble

Hiding from Cindy — (August 18, 2005) The world is watching, George — will you look her in the eye?

Suicide bombers — (August 11, 2005) 'Killing all mankind' isn't just a metaphor

Running on war — (August 4, 2005) Bush presidency is a showcase for 'Turd Blossom's' moral relativism

Root causes — (July 28, 2005) PATRIOT Act has no more to do with combating terrorism than invasion of Iraq

Catching courage — (July 21, 2005) Our security is our triumph over isolation and fear

Disarming the future — (July 14, 2005) The wall between 'us' and 'them' needs to come down

America, America — (July 7, 2005) We're losing each other, we're shoving each other away

The Spirit of Nazism — (June 30, 2005) Supporters of American torture want us to cut them a little slack

Blood and lies — (June 23, 2005) Truth about the Iraq war trickles out despite the media

Bad debt — It's time for the world's destitute to stop subsidizing the rich

Fear of riffraff — Underlying hysteria sets stage for vote suppression

The last war? — Let's risk the mockery and say out loud that it's time to stop

The Counter-Recruiters — All the charm of the draft — and then some

The Helpless God — Mother's Day, a baby boy and the future of the human race

Moonbat lefty for fair elections — Readers respond to recent columns

Democracy's Abu Ghraib — If they can disable an election, what's coming next?

The silent scream of numbers — The 2004 election was stolen — will someone please tell the media?

Killing the witnesses — Did the U.S. military deliberately target journalists in Baghdad?

The Father Wound — Two hours with a dying man changed her whole life

Morality circus — Prolonging a life for the sake of cockeyed compassion and right-wing politics

Trickle-down violence — A militarized society spawns killers with clear consciences

Peeling back the mandate — Voting rights are once more at the forefront of the civil rights movement

Nuclear exchange — What kind of future does Nevada's new Test Site museum point to?

A rosewood coffin — Nun's slaying focuses world attention on plight of rainforest

Vietnam Syndrome — The worse things get in Iraq, the more quickly it will come back

Save the Iraqis — U.S. air war on the insurgents casts a wide net

Crack in the bell — Can Iraq's election be any more legit than our own?

The impunity bubble — To U.S. media, Bush's deeds matter far less than his words

Family Values — Does a pregnant woman have the right to divorce an abusive husband?

America the Hideous — Have we stopped torturing detainees or not?

One tsunami a day — Ongoing political and economic disasters are off the radar screen

Let the music play — Troops 'honored' with hollow grief, clinical depression and photo-op glory

Darwin in high school — In the age of science, Biblical literalists try to stave off extinction

Interrupted patriotism — The only troops I can fully support are those who refuse to obey orders

Quantifying integrity — A cost-effective, infallible contraption for outing lies?

"I'm here" — Roll call of SOA dead summons all of us

Jihad with a yahoo — We won’t know how badly the streets stink from rotting corpses

Cruel and unusual nomination — It's for time a national referendum on torture

How to spell God — Democrats should return to their own core values

Day of the Dead — When do we become worse than Saddam Hussein?

Critical choice — "Young people these days don't know what an illegal abortion is"

Unthinkable chic — Dr. Strangelove's vision gets a makeover

A waste of democracy — A thousand pages undermine our justifications for war

Murdered language — Smooth, seamless lies turn Bush into a human rights champion

Narrow borders — Homeland Security is more worried about ideology than terrorism

The Wild East — Bounty hunter epitomizes the "freedom" we've brought to Afghanistan

Crying Shame — Beslan tragedy a result of the "war on terror," not a justification for it

Invisible boundaries — A daughter goes to college, a single dad relives his past

Hunger for hope — "The impossible" is within our reach

The founding contradiction — We remain enslaved to an unreconciled past

Media groupthink — When the war drums sound, the Times and Post click their heels

Bliss, Ignorance and Mushroom Clouds
— "Downwinders" decry health, values disaster of U.S. nuclear weapons program

Resist much, obey little — Poets raise their voices against a fraudulent war

Free speech zones — Love America, hate Bush, leave in handcuffs

Closed System — "We can learn there are different ways to do democracy"

Calling off America — Our fragile democracy may be in more peril than it’s ever been

Little Brother — Our president toils not ... but boy, does he ever spin

Misplaced curiosity — Media Puritans sure can't deal with sex unless it's a scandal

Human strip mines — Torture can only occur in a moral vacuum

The Wedding Party — Our mission in Iraq includes turning children into martyrs

Fantasy war — Stop-loss order keeps GIs shackled to an illusion

Spectator democracy — Let's fight for representative government on our own soil

Universal Soldier — There is a difference between being a soldier and being a human being

Arrogance and betrayal — Millions of people are on "DU Death Row"

"Sorry's" hollow ring — The best damage control is impeachment

Feel lucky? — If you don't believe in global warming, you'd better be right

Cassandra speaks — Scott Ritter's unblinking vision of our national nightmare

Secure birth — The prison system's crime against mother and child

Scenes from a quagmire — A united Iraq wants U.S. to stop liberating it

Mass destruction — We're looking for WMD in the wrong place

The national blessing — Dispute over "Under God" more adrenal than spiritual

Silent genocide — Depleted-uranium munitions are contaminating the world

One democracy too many — We don't want your kind in this hemisphere

Virtuous violence — Peace constitutes a terrible danger

Protecting our daughters — Who’s the enemy? What’s the war?

The disappeared — Public's dwindling tolerance for slaughter is big PR problem

Bad patient — Fighting for your humanity a crucial part of beating cancer

Barbed patriotism — Music can't hide brutal truth about School of the Americas

The left behind — We're "rescuing" children like we're bringing democracy to Iraq

Weird science — A little faith will keep you from choking on White House policy

Shell shock — Some GIs will fight war on terror for the rest of their lives

Red alert — Even alarmed Republicans have started to break ranks

Chump change — When you lay a square nest egg, you're going to feel pain

Underground passage — True believers set their sights on heretic Dean

Repeated lies — Gilding the occupation doesn't make it democracy

Shadow legacy — Looking back four decades at how Saddam got his start

Soft targets — Soul-searching in the wake of another 'bombing error'

Revolution of roses — The Georgians can teach us something about regime change

Shatter the bowl of heaven — What if men stopped acting the way
they're supposed to act?

Peacock feathers — Bush struts manhood while black hole beckons

Tell us the truth — Federal Communications Commission launches a rock tour

The perfect weapon — Our love affair with depleted uranium

Never forget — Ghosts of Vietnam are reporting for duty in Iraq

The mouths of babes — Futile debate stirs up froth and ignores reality

Escape from democracy — Media help Californians self-medicate with Arnold

Bring Me Men — Can you wage war without a side order of rape?

Secrets and leaks — You don't want government functioning too efficiently