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Robert Erwin

Robert Erwin, a former Director of the University of Pennsylvania Press who now lives in Amherst, Mass, about 3 miles down the road from Emily Dickinson’s house, posts the following: I began contributing to VQR way back when Charlotte Kohler was editor and George Garrett still had hair. Numerous essays in numerous magazines followed, the bulk of them collected in The Great Language Panic and American Products. Recently I became a Contributing Editor at the Massachusetts Review. It was a question of fairness toward the Yankees. My ultimate ambition, which involves dying first, is to be stuffed and exhibited with an informative plaque at the Smithsonian. Thus will the fundamentals of longevity be made known – unprotected sex, lots of tobacco, and no television.

Author

Tax Aversion

When I was about half grown, a family friend named Pat came to our house for parties and dinners. After lubricating himself with three or four highballs he would start a tirade against the U.S. government. Red tape, Eleanor Roosevelt, and highway r [...]

Injuns

As a red-blooded American boy I gobbled up every buckskin thriller and horse opera that came my way. For awhile I tried walking to school with my toes turned in, "Indian fashion." It was uncomfortable, and anybody who watched probably thought I had a [...]

The Enron Factor In American Life

Ultimately, the guideposts of a market-based society never seem to progress beyond tautology: policies that advance markets are good and efficient because they advance markets. Kevin Phillips, from Wealth and Democracy As you may have he [...]

Reagan In Retrospect

Virtually from the day Ronald Reagan entered politics, aides who worked for him, officials who met with him, and journalists who followed him around were startled by his blunders. He became governor of California, Lou Cannon wrote, without a clue a [...]