It was Friday today, and Tahrir Square was packed. It was in a mix of every mood I have seen it in over the past ten months: politically focussed, “The people want to topple the Marshal!”; carnival-like, with face painters and food stalls; determined, with tents and supplies and field hospitals; organized, with volunteers checking bags and I.D.s at the entrances; thuggish, with plenty of knots of young kids from poor neighborhoods; and creative: a new sign had been erected for Mohamed Mahmoud Street, renaming it, “The Street of the Eyes of Freedom”—a reference to the many who had lost their eyesight from police birdshot...

Our Thanksgiving pageants would sure be different! In "100 Dead Pilgrims," an acclaimed nov elist imagines the scene...

Earlier this year, my state’s governor asked if I’d give an after-lunch speech to some of his cabinet and other top officials who were in the middle of a retreat. It’s a useful discipline for writers and theorists to have to summarize books in half an hour, and to compete with excellent local ice cream. No use telling these guys how the world should be at some distant future moment when they’ll no longer be in office—instead, can you isolate themes broad enough to be of use to people working on subjects from food to energy to health care to banking to culture, and yet specific enough to help them choose among the options that politics daily throws up? Can you figure out a principle that might undergird a hundred different policies?...

With Americans in uniform serving all over the world today, the idea of them celebrating Thanksgiving abroad does not strike anyone as unusual. With Americans locked in a world war in 1942, it certainly was....

There are no cows on Mars. Of that, planetary scientists are certain, which leaves them puzzling over what could be producing methane gas detected in the thin Martian air. Methane molecules are easily blown apart by ultraviolet light from the Sun, so any methane around must have been released recently. Could the gas be burbling from something alive?...

Women are on the front lines of Egypt's latest protests, which are raging into their fifth day. The video below shows one radical girl as she marches and chants her way to security forces -- and gets gassed...

An FBImole speaks for the first time about life in the seedy world of right-wing terror...

Recent years have seen an explosion of male joblessness and a steep decline in men’s life prospects that have disrupted the “romantic market” in ways that narrow a marriage-minded woman’s options: increasingly, her choice is between deadbeats (whose numbers are rising) and playboys (whose power is growing). But this strange state of affairs also presents an opportunity: as the economy evolves, it’s time to embrace new ideas about romance and family—and to acknowledge the end of “traditional” marriage as society’s highest ideal...

<!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} -->Sprawled on a sofa in his Manhattan townhouse, attired in T shirt, gray slacks, and maroon slippers, Sondheim spent an hour last week discussing his work...

The most psychologically correct holiday of the year is upon us. Thanksgiving may be the holiday from hell for nutritionists, and it produces plenty of war stories for psychiatrists dealing with drunken family meltdowns. But it has recently become the favorite feast of psychologists studying the consequences of giving thanks. Cultivating an “attitude of gratitude” has been linked to better health, sounder sleep, less anxiety and depression, higher long-term satisfaction with life and kinder behavior toward others, including romantic partners. A new study shows that feeling grateful makes people less likely to turn aggressive when provoked, which helps explain why so many brothers-in-law survive Thanksgiving without serious injury...