We have all heard. We have listened, gasped, and formed ourselves new lives.

Or not.

...

"I don't have a cell phone," I said.

Seven cell phones, handed to me from all directions, dropped in my lap.

...

They call this a ferry flight. We are in uniform, but there are no passengers. This means anything goes. A pilot pretends to do the safety announcement. Another pilot pretends to do a drink service, tossing us cans of coke and water. The pilots take off with the cockpit door open. A flight attendant holds onto the front seats, standing on a safety information card. The plane tips upward on take-off and he slides, laughing, to the back of the plane. We do not wear our seatbelts.

...

"It takes so little, so infinitely little, for a person to cross the border beyond which everything loses meaning: love, convictions, faith, history. Human life -- and herein lies its secret -- takes place in the immediate proximity of that border, even in direct contact with it; it is not miles away, but a fraction of an inch."

...

People say to me, "Whatever it takes." I tell them, It's going to take everything. And still I see a woman in row four, cutting an apple. With a four-inch knife.

...

She tells me she's ready. She may be small, she says, but she's mean. She outlines her plans for fending off terrorists. She says, "I kind of hope something happens, you know?"

She wears an American flag pin on the lapel of her blazer. She sits on the jump seat, waiting for her life to change.

...

"If a well-read citizenry is essential to a vibrant democracy, the decline of literary reading calls for serious action."

Torn between the demands of realpolitik and its vision of changing the world, Bush’s team is consistently opting for compromises on both.

I would like to radicalize the discussion by proffering a thesis so contrarian in the current context that I should probably begin by asking readers’ indulgence. It is this:

There are no fundamental disagreements or differences between the United States and Europe.

Fukuyama was right when he noted that the collapse of the Soviet Union also meant the collapse of the great ideological debate on how to organize economic and political life.

What is most likely is an increasing divide in the Arab world between the small, nimble states on the periphery—the gulf states, Jordan, Morocco—and the slumbering giants.

"The most blatant tyranny is the one which asks the most blatant questions. All questioning is a forcible intrusion. The questioner knows what there is to find, but he wants actually to touch it and bring it to light."

Across the post-industrial West, elections have become eerily manipulated events indistinguishable from corporate advertising campaigns, in which candidates regularly make pronouncements that are obviously insincere or flat-out false but vital to placating millions of voters on hot-button emotional issues. The world loves the untrue statement, and the sliest, most successful politicians deeply internalize this fact.