From The Attic — for a kinder, cooler America Thousands march for peace, millions hope or pray. Peacemakers get busy. The landmine has been called “the perfect soldier: Ever courageous, never sleeps, never misses.” By the 1980s, some 100 million landmines lay buried and millions more sat in stockpiles. Long…

FROM The Attic — For a Kinder, Cooler America HARLEM — 2004 — It was “Showtime at the Apollo” and every act was on edge. Please the tough audience and you got applause, a chance to go further in the competition. Suck and you got booed off stage. …

From The Attic — for a kinder, cooler America CHICAGO, 1893 — For one magical summer, the World’s Columbian Exhibition created the “Great White City.” Ornate buildings stretched for blocks. The first Ferris Wheel towered above the Midway. A medieval village took visitors back in time. …

WHEN JACKIE SAVED GRAND CENTRAL From The Attic — for a Kinder, Cooler America BENEATH MANHATTAN — Bound not for glory but for Midtown, this train rumbles below the city south of Harlem. Dark tunnels echo with the clatter of rails, the screech of brakes. When the train stops, you…

NASHVILLE 1950s — Country music was in a dark hollow. The Opry was still Grand but getting Old. Every lanky guy with a git-tar wanted to be Hank, every gal with a perm and pressed blouse wanted to be Patsy. But sittin’ ‘round drinkin’ with the rest of the guys…

RIDING THE MIRACLE RAILS — “NOTHING LIKE IT IN THE WORLD” From The Attic — for a Kinder, Cooler America SIERRA NEVADAS, CALIFORNIA — We are 21st century Americans riding a train through history.

From The Attic — for a Kinder, Cooler America MANHATTAN, SPRING 1941 — All the people at this party seem true blue American. Well bred, well fed, well read, not the kind of rabble drawn to dictatorship. But as “a somewhat macabre parlor game,” the tall woman in the corner…

From The Attic — for a Kinder, Cooler America MANHATTAN — 1870 — It was an off-year election, but voter fraud was expected. On that brisk November morning, three women gather in a posh Manhattan brownstone. When the ladies are seated, one recites the 14th amendment. “No state shall make…

From The Attic — for a Kinder, Cooler America ROSS LAKE, WASHINGTON, 1957 — Wind and rain rocked the North Cascades. Jack Kerouac slept little. The next day he would cross the lake, then ascend to a cabin in paradise. But after riding a horse up switchback trails, drenched in…