Sam Heller
Yale is right to back freedom of speech

Much as it kills me to be positive (these columns are easier to write when I’m tearing someone down for using scare quotes inappropriately), I’m […]

Content aside, the title makes the column

“Goodbye, boys, I die a true American.” So went the apocryphal last words of Bill “The Butcher” Poole as he died on March 8, 1855. […]

YSFP meals impress, but at great expense

As I was eating a grass-fed burger the other day, I paused from enjoying its ground-meatness to contemplate how sweet a person I am. After […]

Realism, not what-ifs, key to handling Iraq

In The New York Times Magazine’s profile of former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner (“The Fallback,” 3/12), writer Matt Bai conveyed Warner’s political ignorance by describing […]

Abroad, Americans act as emissaries

Most Americans traveling abroad understand that they are held to a high standard of behavior, which means leaving the hometown shenanigans at home — after […]

Rumpus’ intent was to amuse, not degrade

In their recent column, Christine Hung and Annette Wong lodge the complaint that certain publications, the latest issue of Rumpus among them, “employ generalizations that […]

American democracy thrives under Bush

In a recent editorial, Xan White criticizes the president’s policies and the beliefs that underpin them, complaining at length that nobody else has done so […]

Superficial depictions hurt cartoon debate

In “Response to cartoons lacks empathy” (2/20), Jordan Trevino makes a decent point regarding the need for the West and America, to avoid reducing Muslims […]

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The proposed 700-mile wall along the U.S.-Mexican border seems to offend the delicate sensibilities of Jordan Trevino, if his editorial, “Wall would entrench prejudice” (1/19), […]

‘Awe’ for Constitution isn’t such a bad thing

When I read Jeff Mankoff’s editorial impugning any (appropriate) reverence for our Constitution (“Putting an end to Constitution worship,” 9/22), honestly, I was disappointed both […]