Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

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This week on nybooks.com: The massacre in Newtown, cell phones and security in New York schools, Americanizing books, the devastation of Hurricane Sandy, gun control, and an essay on joy.
IDOLATRY Our Moloch Garry Wills What happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School Friday morning cannot be blamed just on one unhinged person. It was the sacrifice we as a culture made, and continually make, to our demonic god. We guarantee that crazed man after crazed man will have a flood of killing power readily supplied him. We have to make that offering, out of devotion to our Moloch, our god. The gun is our Moloch.
HEGEMONY Learning to Speak American Tim Parks I had started the editing process in a spirit of easygoing cooperation, determined to set aside any pride in Englishness and work to produce the best package possible for an American public. But doubts soon arose.
INEQUITY Why Are Poor Kids Paying for School Security? Francine Prose Cell phones are officially banned from public schools in New York City, and each morning, students in the eighty-eight schools that have been equipped with metal detectors—many of whom are poor enough to qualify for the free lunch program—pay a dollar to leave their phones in the privately owned trucks parked outside.
AFTER THE STORM Occupy the Rockaways! Michael Greenberg I made my way to Rockaway a week after Hurricane Sandy, and it was immediately clear that the entire eleven-mile peninsula had sustained a mortal, earthen wound.
					EVENTS Christmas Music in New York From Bach's Christmas Oratorioto Christmas Music from the Czech Lands to The Christmas Story, a selection of holiday performances in churches, cathedrals and concert halls in New York City, as chosen by our editors.
GUNS To Keep and Bear Arms Garry Wills It is difficult to sort out all the extraneous, irrelevant, and partial material daily thrown into the debate. In order to make any progress at all, we must restrict ourselves to what, precisely, is covered by the Second Amendment. Our Romance With Guns David Cole Is there anything to be done about gun violence in America? One solution would be to ban guns. The United Kingdom does that, and its homicide rate is about one quarter that of the United States. But constitutional, political, and practical obstacles stand in the way of any such solution in the US.
ESSAY Joy Zadie Smith It might be useful to distinguish between pleasure and joy. But maybe everybody does this very easily, all the time, and only I am confused. A lot of people seem to feel that joy is only the most intense version of pleasure, arrived at by the same road—you simply have to go a little further down the track. That has not been my experience.