The Liberals tried. They gave money. They watched boring news specials. They held hands all the way across America. They even pretended to laugh at sketches with Robin Williams, Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg. But at some point in every one-way relationship, pity turns to resentment, and now even the liberals are turning on the homeless: San Francisco has voted to reduce their benefits 85%; Santa Monica, Calif., passed laws preventing them from sleeping in the doors of shops or ...

The anonymous call for a "jasmine revolution" in China's major cities was made online, first on a website run by overseas dissidents, then on Twitter, which despite being blocked is still widely used by activists in China. But unlike what happened in Tunisia and Egypt, where such efforts prompted massive street protests that eventually toppled both governments, the biggest response in China was from the state. Over the weekend the government rounded up lawyers, activists and dissidents, ...

In April, I crossed into remote central Sudan's Nuba Mountains and found a land back on the brink of a forgotten war. Since then, the war has returned, and reports from the ground indicate mass atrocities repeating themselves. With the world preoccupied with dividing Sudan into two new countries next month following South Sudan's January referendum for independence, international leaders are understandably reluctant to become involved in yet another crisis in Sudan. But the world might not ...

FOR clothes-conscious American women, the summer of discontent is over; this week the autumn of decision begins. Home from vacation, they face the most difficult fall shopping dilemma in decades: whether to go for the midi. Not since Christian Dior's 1947 New Look has a descending hemline raised such a furor. Men denounce the midi as a threat to the golden days of mini ogling; women insist that it will make them look old, or ugly, or dumpy, or sawed-off—or ...

As a divorced woman over 35, I'm well aware that my chances of marrying again are roughly equal to the probability of my being taken hostage in a terrorist incident. O.K., I know that statistic has been debunked, but from where I sit, it still feels true. Ten years after my divorce, I'm beginning to think I might actually prefer being taken hostage to any more dating. "So," I'd say to Osama bin Laden, "you come here often?" Dating ...

As Queen Elizabeth II was touching down in a Dublin airport on May 17 for the start of her four-day visit to Ireland, the Irish people were holding their collective breath. The Queen's visit was being billed as a sign of the end of centuries of friction between the two countries — and one which most Irish were praying would go well, as they could little afford any more harm to their nation's reputation given the bad ...

The greatest battle of World War II may still be fought on English soil. If it is, one of many reasons that Hitler may be beaten will be the new and growing British People's Army opposing him: Brit ain's Home Guard. And one of the many obscure heroes responsible for Hitler's defeat will be the most urgent of Britain's advocates for a People's Army: Thomas H. Wintringham. Tom Wintringham is no Sandhurst diehard, but his dope on warfare is from ...

I love celebrity memoirs, and not in an ironic way. I don't love them because they're campy. I hate camp. I don't love them because they're full of Hollywood gossip. I'm not interested in Hollywood gossip. Even though I work for Time Inc., and the profits from People magazine probably pay most of my salary. I love them and read them because they are, to me, existential fairy tales about one human being's triumph over the all-corrupting ...

Several years into my father's journey down the narrowing road of Alzheimer's, when he was still going out for walks, I looped my arm through his one afternoon and walked with him along a leafy street near my parents' home. A few people recognized him, waved and called out, "Hello, Mr. President" and "God bless you." He smiled and waved back. Then he looked at me, confused, and asked, "Do I know them?" No, Dad, I said. "They ...

In January 1992, deep within a tempestuous stretch of subarctic sea, a Taiwan ship on its way from Hong Kong to the U.S. was beset by foul weather and lost several steel containers overboard. One of these cracked open upon hitting the water, liberating its cargo: 28,800 plastic children's bathtub toys in the shapes of turtles, frogs, beavers and ducks. Several months and many untold thousands of sea miles later, the figurines began to bob ashore along the coasts of Alaska ...