In a scene in a new fictional movie about Scientology called Until Nothing Remains, one of the group's leaders is giving an impassioned speech to followers in Germany. The camera pulls in tighter on the man's face and, all of a sudden, he cries out "Clear Germany!" to a round of rapturous applause. No, he's not talking about pushing all nonbelievers out of the country — he's referring to the state of "clear," a condition characterized by ...

This is the way David Boies conducts himself when the battle is at its hottest, when losses are mounting and the enemy is preparing for the kill: he sits upright with his gold-framed reading glasses halfway down his nose, a pen and document in hand, while his paralegal, only a few feet away, performs a circus act involving two cell phones, a briefcase and an importunate reporter. Boies' pen makes sharply slanting scratches on a critical legal brief--just one stone ...

Warden was just going back for seconds on both hotcakes and eggs when this blast shuddered by under the floor and rattled the cups It had become very quiet and everybody had stopped eating and looked up at each other. "Must be doin some dynamitin down to Wheeler Field," somebody said tentatively. -- James Jones, From Here to Eternity The brass band on the stern of the U.S.S. Nevada kept on playing The Star- Spangled Banner for the 8 a.m. ...

"They own. you know, the banks in this country, the newspapers. Just look at where the Jewish money is." That heedless remark, evoking the cliches of hoary antiSemitism, was the worst-aimed bomb of four-star Air Force General George S. Brown's 33-year military career. When it exploded last week, President Ford called Brown, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, into the Oval Office for a ten-minute reprimand. New York Republican Senator Jacob Javits demanded an investigation. Democratic Senator William ...

When Russia sent shells raining down on Georgia, it seemed initially as if Vladimir Putin was savagely pursuing what he saw as Russian national interests. Moscow claimed Georgian aggression against Russian loyalists in South Ossetia and has objected to both Georgia's bid to join NATO and the Pentagon's arming and training of the Georgian military. But a closer examination of the run-up to Putin's inexcusable invasion suggests that Russia's action had as much to do with its wounded pride as ...

Five months ago Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art crowned its notable 1936-3 7 season with a comprehensive exhibit of the very latest artistic wrinkle, Surrealism. With a vertiginous backward leap 200 centuries into the Fourth Ice Age, the Museum last week wound up its season by presenting an extraordinary collection of Prehistoric Rock Pictures. Director Alfred Barr Jr. saw no paradox. He recalled that many cave decorations were magic symbols to help the painter with his hunting, and thus "today ...

Federal bureaucrats call it the "border fence." The residents along the Texas-Mexico border say it's a wall echoing the Cold War. And south of the Rio Grande, Governor Humberto Moreira of the Mexican state of Coahuila has dubbed it a "wall of hate." But no matter what the controversial barrier being constructed between Mexico and the U.S. is called, the $1.6 billion, 670-mile-long first phase is close to completion as President Barack Obama enters office. And ...

As a land passionately devoted to free enterprise, the U.S. has always been the best place for a man to make his million. Throughout its history—from the days of the earliest Virginia planters to the postwar bloom of electronics millionaires—the drive for fortune has been a shaping influence and a productive force. The fabled 19th century millionaires—John D. Rockefeller, Edward H. Harriman and Andrew Carnegie—all began poor. Despite their often controversial actions, they, like most American millionaires, basically enriched themselves by enriching a growing nation.Lately, the belief ...

What exactly does a normal child look like? We've long since passed the time when childhood was an ungraded test--take your time, build your forts, play your games, the clock does not start until high school, maybe college. We give homework in first grade now. We're very busy people. And your parents will do anything, just anything, to help you get ahead. "We lived with it," says Tim, of his daughter's behavior--the tantrums, the hitting, covering herself in Vaseline head to ...