Freedom of speech is essential if sound ideas are to be promoted and flourish and if terrible ideas are to be exposed and wither. It can be a difficult freedom to defend. At a Congressional hearing last Tuesday, following the terrible events of
Gratitude for My Violent Act
1 From the age of four until around my tenth birthday, my commute from the suburbs to my London school was at least an hour and a half each way. The coach, meaning a single-deck bus, ground through stop-and-start traffic along the non-postcard
Gender Tags
In the past few decades my name, Adrian, has become androgynous. The distinction used to be between my spelling, which was for boys and men, and “Adrienne” for girls and women. Often this distinction is maintained today, but often not. Combine the
If You Are Having Thoughts of Murder…
We live under such a barrage of public service announcements that they have become white noise. When a train comes to a grinding halt or my plane stands idly by the runway, I may hear an announcement only if I’m annoyed by the “any” in “We
Monkey Business
Here’s something I wrote when I was seven in one of my class exercise books that have miraculously survived the years: I have been to the seaside, Shanklin, in the Isle of Wight. We stayed there for a week. We saw the only traffic lights on the
Sisyphus
Something terrible is always happening around the world. Many of us living in peaceful places can’t help but wonder at our good fortune while we seek to understand what has gone so wrong elsewhere. 1 Two mornings a week on my ninth floor terrace,