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Relates experience of learning to drive in New York City. Development of close relations with the driving instructor; Correlation of life with inability to drive; Attempt of finding self-confidence through driving.

Presents letters to the editor in response to articles and columns published in previous editions of "The Nation." Response to the column "Subject to Debate," on Brooklyn College professor Timothy Shortell, in the June 27, 2005 edition; Response to the column "Films," featuring a review of the motion picture "Cinderella Man," in the July 4, 2005 edition; Response to the article "Letter From Ground Zero," on the war in Iraq, in the July 4, 2005 edition; Others.

This article offers a commentary on the differences between the media hype and the actual demonstrations held in protest of the Republican National Convention. In the days leading up to the protests against the Republican National Convention, the specter of possible violence by radicals fueled much of the media coverage of the activists. Fox News made every effort to conflate dissenters with terrorism, not by reporting terrorism by protesters -- since there wasn't any--but by constantly juxtaposing the words "protest" and "terrorists." Let's cut to reality, shall we? On Sunday, August 29, United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) led half a million people in a peaceful march through Manhattan past Madison Square Garden, where the Republicans would convene the next day. Of more than 1,700 arrests through the third day of the convention, some were deserved. But many people were targeted by police for reasons unclear. Many RNC protesters were being held well over the legal limit of twenty-four hours. Many were denied the right to counsel. Throughout the week, people engaged in acts of civil disobedience, and sometimes the point was simply the right to dissent, and some did so with a clear critique of Bush policy. After all the hysteria about those on the fringes, RNC week made it clear we wouldn't have resistance movements without them. The clean-cut middle class showed up to protest, but the activists and artists of the left made sure those good citizens had someplace to go--and that they were entertained.

The article discusses the growing public support for the "Occupy Wall Street" (OWS) protest movement in the U.S. From its origins in New York City, OWS encampments have sprung up in Los Angeles, California, Phoenix, Arizona and other cities. Prominent figures voicing sympathy for OWS include bond-fund manager Bill Gross and chief executive Vikram Pandit of banking company Citigroup Inc.

Presents the author's view on the controversy surrounding the appointment of atheist Tim Shortell as chair of the sociology department of Brooklyn College in New York City. Review of how Shortell's election to the position was covered in "The Sun" and "Daily News"; Subsequent withdrawal from consideration by Shortell; Discussion of other controversial college professors in the New York area; Author's view that incidents surrounding the work of these professors threatens academic freedoms.

The author mentions David Soares is running for district attorney in New York and discusses the outlook for the United States Supreme Court. Democrats haven't made much of what would happen to the courts should Bush win a second term. There have been no vacancies on the Court in Bush's first term. Still, the current Court has been sitting for ten years, and the only Justice under 65 is Clarence Thomas. Justice Stevens, the liberal stalwart, is 84! The next President will probably get one, two or even three nominations, and Bush has said he wants more Justices in the Scalia/Thomas mold. Depending on who leaves, the balance of forces may not change right away. But even if Bush merely trades a worn-out reactionary like the 80-year-old Rehnquist for a fresh young one, he's locking up a seat for the right wing on the nation's top Court -- for what, the next thirty years? The whole tenor of this Administration is to go for as much as it can get, to keep the Christian right happy, and to restrict reproductive rights in every conceivable way--down to the last stem cell. Once on the bench, the far-right, ideologically driven judges Bush favors could throw caution to the winds and act on their sincere hatred of abortion. State support of religion is another crucial battleground. The truth is, there is hardly an area of life that will not be affected by the judicial appointments made in the coming years.

The article focuses on the financial challenge facing the New York Abortion Access Fund. There were four women who sought second-trimester abortions in New York City and were about to be sent home because there was insufficient money to pay for their procedures. The four women were considered the human face of the Congressional debate over partial-birth abortion. The term partial-birth abortion was invented by an anti-choicers. It has no exact medical meaning and is not found in any medical reading materials.

The article focuses on antiwar demonstration in New York on February 15, 2003. The demonstration to stop the war in Iraq was huge, exciting, exhilarating, despite the weather and the heavy hand of the New York Police District. Thousands, barred by police from the designated rally area on First Avenue and 49th Street on up, tied up traffic on Second and Third, thousands left, discouraged, even as others, unknowing, streamed forward and still others were penned by lines of cops and metal barricades into side streets. Mounted police charged into the crowd, and more than 250 people were arrested, mostly on minor charges.

The article focuses on news related to mayor elections in New York City. Billionaire Michael Bloomberg was elected by a narrow 30,000 votes. In retrospect, it seems, nothing was more obvious than that politician Mark Green would slide to humiliating defeat from a double-digit lead a mere two weeks before Election Day. Suddenly, it turned out to matter that Bloomberg, who refused to participate in the campaign finance system, spent a rumored $60 million of his own immense fortune on the race, although his free spending on everything from advertisements and mailings to hats and high-placed academics was widely mocked.

This article focused on the debate over abortion laws in the United States. Thirty years ago male politicians struck down New York State's restrictive abortion law, under which nearly all abortions were illegal. But policy change doesn't happen in a vacuum--physicians, and politicians too, had watched women die from ii- legal abortions for decades without being willing to do anything about it. What's missing from these accounts of legalization is the feminist activism that made it happen. Beginning in 1969, radical feminists held speakouts on abortion, at which hundreds of women went public with their own experiences.

The article focuses on the New York City plan concerning economic and public welfare. Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, in his administration, hired Jason Turner, who helped carry out Wisconsin's draconian welfare reform program in New York City. This plan requires women to work at any job they can find beginning six to twelve weeks after childbirth. New York City's plan is similar, in that, people are expected to fend for themselves, to take any job, any makeshift childcare. The city's new "job centers;' staffed by "financial planners" , have specialized in lowering the rolls by any means possible-and preventing new people from signing on.

Colleges in the City University of New York (CUNY) has voted to ban English language courses called Freshman Composition or disguised as English 101, taught for credit at public and private colleges all over the U.S. Students accepted into CUNY will have to pass placement tests in reading, writing and mathematics or be shunted off to remediate themselves at the system's community colleges, which are already overcrowded, or in no-credit summer crash courses, which will cost CUNY millions and do not yet exist. Behind the CUNY reforms is a stereotype of its students as lazy underachievers fluent in Spanglish, Ebonics and welfare fraud, and of CUNY as a no-standards free-for-all, with students taking half their lives to graduate.