The Weekly Rader

AS YOU HAVE NO doubt noticed, I've pretty much stopped posting to TWR. Between my regular column for the San Francisco Chronicle 's ...

"It's a beautiful story, and it's a lie." That's Jon Krakauer, noted author of Into the Wild and Into Thin Ai...

Here we are, midway through National Poetry Month, and so far, no posts from me about the best 30 days of the year. But, I know what you...

As surprised I was by the overwhelming response to my call for lists of the 10 greatest poets, I was even more taken by the lack of . . . fu...

Who would have thought so many people would have so many strong opinions about poetic greatness? The hundreds of passionate, articulate, per...

Anthony Tommasini's fascinating project to identify the ten greatest composers has generated a shocking amount of publicity and an impr...

SPRING SEMESTER CLASSES STARTED last week at the University of San Francisco , where I am on the faculty in the English Department. When pe...

FOR THE PAST FEW years, I've had great fun "grading" the texts of major political speeches using the same terminology and rub...

CAN ONE DRAW A line between Sarah Palin's Crosshairs map and the shooting of twenty people in Tucson? Can political discourse be a cata...

SUNDAY'S OP-ED PIECE in The Wall Street Journal , " Why Chinese Mothers are Superior " by Amy Chua, was a magnet for diverse o...