Archive
Don’t Deck the Halls for This One
Channeling the spirit of the holiday season, key lawmakers managed to set aside dysfunction and take the first step in a small budget deal for the 2014 fiscal year. Back in October, Congress ended the 16-day government shutdown that cost this country 120,000 jobs by...
Three Lessons from Mandela
Everyone seems to agree that Nelson Mandela, like Martin Luther King Jr., is one of the great figures not only of the 20th century but, indeed, of the long trail of history. Here are three lessons we can learn from his amazing life: Lesson 1: There are times when...
The End of the Internet As We Know It
The Internet is the world's largest shopping mall, library, video store, post office and town square. When you turn on your computer, you're in the driver's seat, choosing what you want to read, watch, and hear. We owe everything we love about the Web to net...
The Power of Reconciliation and Unity
Nelson Mandela's heroic struggle for a free, non-racial, and democratic South Africa inspired freedom-loving people around the world but was especially intertwined with the spirit of our nation's Civil Rights movement. African Americans felt a special relationship...
Equality Lets the Good Times Roll
World Bank economist Branko Milanovic does serious work. His explorations into global income distribution have won him a wide — and appreciative — audience in scholarly and policy-making circles the world over. But Milanovic isn't always crunching data and writing up...
Santa’s Dreaming of a Green Christmas
Santa's changing some policies at the North Pole. You see, he's concerned about global warming. If the polar ice caps melt, his workshop will sink into the Arctic Ocean. He'd become a climate refugee. What's more, our changing climate is endangering our food supply....
This Thriller Is Both a Joke and No Laughing Matter
In the standard spy thriller, our hero gets captured by agents of a repressive government. They take him into a dark interrogation room, where the sadistic spymaster hisses: "We have ways of making you talk." In real life, the director of our National Security Agency...
Marriage Equality Hits Critical Mass
During his recent bar mitzvah ceremony, Duncan McAlpine Sennett had to chant a biblical passage in Hebrew and deliver a short sermon in English putting that text into perspective. The Portland, Oregon 13-year-old had an unusual challenge with this routine part of the...
A Bunch of Subversives
Flashback: You Can’t Save Social Security by Destroying It
One of my favorite stories of 2004 concerned Senate Majority Leader William Frist and his campaign fund. Realizing he had an excess of funds, he invested in the stock market. He lost about $450,000 between 2000 and 2004. You would think that would have taught...
