Michael King
Editorial
Treeware Forever!
This special, forty-page issue is one of two the Observer devotes each year (summer and winter) to what is now defined in cyber-slang as “treeware,” or “dead tree editions”: those cheaply produced, highly portable, energy efficient, user- and eyesight-friendly, completely … Read More
The Arkansas Project Unmasked
The Hunting of the President: The Ten-year Campaign to Destroy Hillary and Bill Clinton This is the most disgustingly fascinating political book I’ve ever read. As the subtitle indicates, it is the anatomy of a would-be political murder. I can’t … Read More
Book Review
Working History
Mollie’s Job: A Story of Life and Work On the Global Assembly Line Readers of the Observer’s June 9 excerpt of Bill Adler’s Mollie’s Job (Chapter Thirteen: “On the Border, By the Sea”) will be familiar with the book’s attention … Read More
The Power of Positive Thinkers
One unofficial theme of the 2000 Texas State Republican Convention, June 14 through 17, was Think Positive, and the virus was contagious enough that one could catch it standing in the concession line. A genial, rotund delegate from Williamson County … Read More
Cool, Squared
Croupier Written by Paul Mayersberg The anthropologists say that our concept of “coolness” originates in Africa, presumably among young black men accustomed by centuries of human culture to look upon the world with splendid indifference, the way the sun shines … Read More
Editorial
Drug Hysteria
Canadian filmmaker Ron Mann’s excellent new documentary, Grass, traces the absurd history of the national campaign to stamp out marijuana use, a century-long exercise in official hysteria and futility. Using reams of exhaustively researched period material, Mann recounts a highly … Read More