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Illustration of Amusing Ourselves to Death book cover with a magnifying glass

How Entertainment Mangled Public Discourse

Neil Postman’s jeremiad against TV seems rather quaint today—and not just because he was shouting into the wind and knew it.

A photo of musician and songwriter Randy Newman at a piano on stage in an empty auditorium

Randy Newman’s Genius for Political Irony

Few singer-songwriters have such fun getting under listeners’ skin.

Heather Souvaine Horn

The True Threat to American Retirement

A photograph of an elderly man grinning while seated in a golf cart on a sunny day with palm trees in the background

Heather Souvaine Horn

The True Threat to American Retirement

Books & the Arts

A still from the television show Say Nothing

Say Nothing’s Ambitious Drama About an IRA Kidnapping Ends Too Soon

The FX adaptation of Patrick Radden Keefe’s bestseller about the Troubles is a gutting and grand limited series. But it needed more time to do its subject justice.

Portrait of author Dinaw Mengestu

Grief and Dislocation in the D.C. Suburbs

Dinaw Mengestu’s novels, layered with crisis and heartbreak, show a different side of the nation’s capital.