Innholdsfortegnelse for Sep-22-14 i The New Yorker

AIPAC’S INFLUENCE Connie Bruck, in her piece about the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, shows clearly the flaws in the U.S. political system (“Friends of Israel,” September 1st). AIPAC’s practices constitute nothing less than legalized bribery of American politicians. In most democracies, airtime for campaigning is not for sale; it is allocated equitably, so that all voices can be heard. In Israel, there is some of the U.S.-type corruption in internal party primaries, but, in the lead-up to the general election, television and radio time is rationed. When Thomas Friedman wrote in the New York Times that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s standing ovation in Congress was bought and paid for, he was right on target. The problem transcends AIPAC and Middle East policy. The U.S. has transitioned from…

What are you doing on this side of the dark?You chose that side, and those you leftfeel your image across their sleeping lidsas a blinding atomic blast.Last we knew,you were suspended midairlike an angel for a pageant off the roomwhere your wife slept. She hadto cut you down who’d been (I heard)so long holding you up. We all tried to,faced with your need, which we somehowunderstood and felt for and tookinto our veins like smack. And youmust be lured by that old pain smolderinglike woodsmoke across the death boundary.Prowl here, I guess, if you have to bother somebody.Or, better yet, go bother God, who shapedthat form you despised from common clay.That light you swam so hard away fromstill burns, like a star over a desert or atopa tree in a…

Bees in Virgil—something silver and secret,Like lightning over the landOr striking a plum tree on some dried hill. Bees in Frost: light jumping off the back of a flower—yellow jacketsAnd a grasshopper too—always wet and alive since it’s spring—White faces peeking over stacks of new hay. Bees alsoIn Crane,Strange and mechanical, mud wasps,A corset of wires,The buzzOf a tiny iron machine,Thunderstorm comingOn a dark afternoon. Dickinson knew the smallest bees,Tiptoeing along the edge of her desk,Until she got an idea and suddenly stood,Knocking the table, the bee taking offInto the night she was rapidly opening,Catching a glimpse at the end of the worldOf a white rocking chairAnd, behind it, circumference,An enormous black pine, blue sky,The little bee obliterated by white-yellow light. O’Hara saw a bee,Following a long line of salt…