It's been a busy week for Sean Penn. In theaters, the actor is generating Oscar buzz for his starring role in Milk and on the newsstand, he wrote the cover story for The Nation. If the Mr. Penn has his way, he just might bring an end to the U.S. embargo on Cuba. In the December 15th issue ...

The durability of Conservatism has depended, to a great extent, on it being a disposition rather than a philosophy. What marks Conservatives out, across the generations, and whatever the environment they operate in, is an attitude of mind rather than an adherence to dogma. And that disposition -- sceptical, cautious, pragmatic, sensitive to the local and the particular -- has been politically ...

Our man all over the place LOVE, POVERTY AND WAR: JOURNEYS AND ESSAYS by Christopher Hitchens Atlantic Books,

The day before this review was written Christopher Hitchens was insulted ('ex-Trotskyist popinjay' and other unrepeatables) during a Washington press mêlée by George Galloway. This incident may remind those who knew Hitch when he was in short pants how famous he has ...

Is it a rule that British novelists have to take a simplistic anti-religious position? Is it a precondition for entering the Booker Prize or something? It is a central part of our literary culture. Many of our major novelists and critics have in recent years come forward to attack religion; to insist that its claims are straightforwardly false. Martin Amis ...