Ben Yagoda
By Ben Yagoda
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Culture What Bob Dylan Owes to Frank Sinatra — and Vice-Versa
In the summer of 1966, Frank Sinatra passed a baton to Bob Dylan. Not literally, of course: it’s hard to imagine, at that point in their lives, the two men being in the same physical space. Sinatra had been the most important figure in American popular music for twenty-five years: from his bobbysoxer days with…
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Culture How Steven Pinker Became the Anti-Maven of Language
Steven Pinker, the Johnstone Family professor of psychology at Harvard, didn’t coin “language maven” (William Safire did, back in the ’70s, to describe himself), but he did more than anyone else to popularize the term. In a 1994 article in The New Republic called “Grammar Puss,” included in his subsequent book “The Language Instinct,” Pinker…
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Theater Hidden in this picture, the murder of 1.1 million Jews
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News The great tent conspiracy theory: Are ‘outside agitators’ supplying protesters’ tents?
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Opinion Yes, antisemitism is rising. But pro-Palestinian protests aren’t the real threat to our campuses
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Opinion Edward Said tried to erase Jews. So do the pro-Palestinian Columbia protesters citing his legacy
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Fast Forward Two more hostages, including an American Israeli, are seen in video released by Hamas
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Opinion This Passover, college campuses like mine are caught in a very narrow place
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News ADL chief backs campus crackdowns. As a student, he stood up for free speech — even by antisemites
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Opinion I was arrested protesting at Columbia in ’68. Today’s student encampments carry on a proud, brave tradition