Michael Kelly in the New York Times Magazine, May 23, 1993:

The Western World, [Hillary Clinton] said, needed to be made anew. America suffered from a "sleeping sickness of the soul," a "sense that somehow economic growth and prosperity, political democracy and freedom are not enough—that we lack at some core level meaning in our individual lives and meaning collectively, the sense that our lives are part of some greater effort, that we are connected to one another, that community means that we have a place where we belong no matter who we are."

She spoke of ... a nation crippled by "alienation and despair and hopelessness," a nation that was in the throes of a "crisis of meaning."

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North Carolina's 12th Congressional District features a narrow filament of land 160 miles long connecting two areas in which African Americans are concentrated. In a 5-to-4 vote, the Supreme Court invalidated such blatant racial gerrymandering practices, which the court had already banned when they are designed to harm rather than help minority interests. The New York Times editorial board characterized the decision as "a full-scale assault on the Voting Rights Act."

[Ed.: In another slim vote years later in 2001, the Supreme Court accepted the validity of such strangely drawn congressional districts if racial representation was arguably not their primary determining factor—similar reasoning used to defend affirmative action in university admissions. Ironically, the Congressional Black Caucus has not been the biggest beneficiary of racial gerrymandering; that distinction goes to Republicans, who have recently enjoyed dramatic new popularity among southern voters. By herding African Americans into a single congressional district, which would undoubtedly result in a Democratic representative, Republicans had more chance or being elected in surrounding districts that had been relatively cleansed of African Americans.]

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From "Reframing Postmodernisms," by Mark C. Taylor, in Shadow of the Spirit: Postmodernism and Religion, edited by Philippa Berry and Andrew Wernick:

Why is L.A., why are the deserts so fascinating? It is because you are delivered from all depth there—a brilliant, mobile superficial neutrality, a challenge to meaning and profundity, a challenge to nature and culture, an outer hyperspace, with no origin, no reference points... The fascination of the desert: immobility without desire. Of Los Angeles: insane circulation without desire. The end of aesthetics.
(Jean Baudrillard)

I have come from the desert as one comes from beyond memory.
(Edmond Jabes)

Frames: Desert, Dessert. One word that is at least two—one spelling, two pronunciations: two spellings, one pronunciation. Desert. Des(s)ert. After dinner desserts—just or otherwise. Neither dinner nor not dinner, but a supplement. Something like a frame that repeats, while inverting, the hors d'oeurve. No longer before but after the repas. Le repas: what is a pas that is a re-pas? Does the doubling of the k/not bind or rebind—ligare or religare? Desert... Des(s)ert... Des(s)erts. What is des(s)erted in the desert? Desert(s), site or non-site of wandering, erring—Vegas... vagus. Delivery from all depth... lights, pure light, absence of shadow? Or delivery to a certain re-pas that is beyond... le pas au-dela, where the absence of shadow is the shadow of spirit.

"Postmodernism" is, of course, a notoriously problematic term...

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