Self-Evident Truths
Timeless stories from our 174-year archive handpicked to add context to the news of the day.
Justices Gone Wild
[ O C T O B E R • 2 0 2 2 ]
“Thus was a new court born—a bad court…The law won’t save liberals from politics.”
Read “Courting Disaster” by Ian MacDougall
[ S E P T E M B E R • 1 9 3 4 ]
“There are millions of citizens who cannot afford to wait and who cry for better judges and a better sort of justice here and now.”
Read “Judging the Judges” by Mitchell Dawson
[ M A R C H • 2 0 0 8 ]
How Republicans hacked the Justice Department: “As long as this new democracy prevails, little will matter beyond the will of the president.”
Read “Vote Machine” by Scott Horton
Macron, Marooned
[ M A Y • 2 0 1 6 ]
Marine Le Pen’s campaign to make France great again.
Read “Front Runner” by Elizabeth Zerofsky
[ F E B R U A R Y • 1 9 6 1 ]
“France must live. If she were to collapse into internal strife or Fascism, the position of the West as a whole might no longer be viable.”
Read “Can de Gaulle Avoid a Civil War?” by George Steiner
[ J U N E • 1 8 5 0 ]
“The Conservatives, or Monarchists, or the old political class, whatever one pleases to call them, begin to perceive that they are beaten in the intellectual, the argumentative struggle. They therefore make an appeal to arms.”
Sock It To ’Em
[ D E C E M B E R • 2 0 1 6 ]
“On a soccer field, almost everything human has been removed. What is left are rules, rituals, and predetermined patterns of behavior, from which all doubt and ambivalence have been erased: when a goal is scored that is all that exists, the goal-scorer’s happiness is total, he screams as loudly as he can, he wheels away with his arms in the air, his teammates shout and run after him.”
Read “Only a Game” by Karl Ove Knausgaard
[ J A N U A R Y • 2 0 0 3 ]
The alchemy of soccer: “The match was a yawn, the ball grew whiskers, but it was pleasant chatting in the sunshine in the middle of the crowd.”
Read “Miracles and Anthems” by Eduardo Galeano, translated by Mark Fried
[ D E C E M B E R • 2 0 1 7 ]
“A philosopher’s flat-footed meditations on the beautiful game.”
Read “Dead Ball Situation” by Geoff Dyer
Independence Day?
[ J U L Y • 2 0 2 1 ]
A scientific analysis of the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest.
Read “Chow Hounds” by James M. Smoglia
[ J U N E • 1 9 0 4 ]
Concerning fireworks.