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we, like diminished kings or rigidly insecure presidents, are reduced to being overwhelmed by info and interpretation, or else paralyzed by cynicism and anomie, or else--worst--seduced by some particular set of dogmatic talking-points, whether these be PC or NRA, rationalist or evangelical, "Cut and Run" or "No Blood for Oil"

several of this year's Best Essays are arguably more like causeries or propos than like essay per se

which is not exactly belletristic but certainly isn't written in aureate academese

the sort of magical compression that enriches instead of vitiates

tired of the legerdemain of collapsing the word's neutral meaning--"preference, inclination"--into the pejorative one of "unfairness stemming from prejudice"