"Bias"

From Dahlia Lithwick's article on the Sotomayor hearings:

Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., warns that the judge's statements "suggest that she may allow, and even embrace, decision-making based on her biases and prejudices."

And no white male would ever do that, eh?

Found: The Great American Novel

If you Google "great american novel," and go to that entry in Wikipedia, you'll find, among other things, a list of books that have been proposed for that title. To that list, I'd like to add Robert Coover's "The Public Burning." The burning referred to is a fictionalized version of the execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg--as a public extravaganza in Times Square. Large parts of the story are narrated by a fictionalized Richard Nixon.

Now, that short description gives a person plenty to think about, but the experience of reading the novel is overwhelming. "The Public Burning" is an ambitious novel about an America that's not as pretty as we'd like to think it is; this America is personified in the character of Uncle Sam, a combination huckster and superhero, who helps our country in its battle with the shadowy Phantom, representative of Communism and anything else that's scary in the big bad world. The character Richard Nixon is remarkably true to the real person of the same name, but perhaps more open, more fleshed out. If I have any doubt about "The Public Burning" living past our era, it's that future generations will have gone without having experienced Nixon. But I don't think the book's life hinges on a knowledge of the real Tricky Dick.

Coover is a fearless author. If you read this book, you'll be amazed by where he's not afraid to go. This isn't a book for the starry-eyed.