We're Gonna Train 'Em: The Fallacy of American Total Make-Over in Iraq
As one of three U.S. Foreign Service officers who left his FSO posting at the State Department in order to express his dissent to the planned invasion of Iraq, I don't have much more to add to the...
View ArticlePaid Leave: The Best Gift for Father's Day
"Do I abandon my family or abandon the job that feeds my family?" That's how one man described the dilemma many fathers face in America today. For a long time in our culture, being a good dad meant...
View ArticleElon Musk Is Even Smarter Than We Thought
It's an Elon Musk world, and we're just living in it. This week, Musk announced that Tesla would yank all of its patents and open up their technology to whomever so desires it. Musk even went so far as...
View ArticleCrossing the Axis of Evil
I officially crossed from the neutral zone into the Axis of Evil when I walked up to an Iranian passport official in the Tehran airport on May 26, 2014. He asked where I was from and I meekly replied,...
View ArticleSaudi Arabia's Sectarian Challenge
Last month, two Saudi Shi'ites received death sentences for allegedly committing crimes that caused no deaths or injuries, marking the harshest punishments issued by Saudi Arabia's government against...
View ArticlePresident Obama Is No Bush
If anyone had said five years ago that President Obama's popularity rating would nosedive to the dreadful level of George W. Bush's ratings the last years of his presidency, they'd be fitted for a...
View Article'You Have to Work with A**holes. That's Democracy. We, in Our Wisdom, Elected...
My annual calendar has two special days, each celebrating a special form of courage. Both, environmentally appropriately, are in the spring. One, in late April, is the Goldman Environmental Prize,...
View ArticleWhat I Have Never Understood About US Failure in Gun Control
I am one of those people who have been fortunate to come to the U.S. and study. I came here in 2011 and graduated from Cornell in 2013. And let me admit, when I came here, like many others, I fell in...
View ArticleSunday Roundup
This week saw Iraq teetering on the edge of chaos as militants seized the nation's second largest city, Mosul. It was another reminder that the devastation from one of the biggest blunders in U.S....
View ArticleIf Republicans Hated War Like They Hate Obamacare, There Wouldn't Be An Iraq...
The Affordable Care Act might eventually be a terrible idea for the country. Perhaps, as Paul Broun (R-GA) once said, "Obamacare is going to destroy everything that we know as a nation." Maybe...
View ArticleThe Gnarly Psychology of Unnecessary War
We have a big problem in Iraq: We Really. Really. Really. Screwed up. The basic scenario we all know, of course. Saddam Hussein, admittedly a bad guy, was also a secularist who kept Al Qaeda and other...
View ArticleAs American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
Mention affordable housing and too often it conjures up the thought of failed housing programs from the '50s and '60s. Not only does this fly in the face of reality of what's happening in our cities...
View ArticleEric Cantor Is Not the First National Political Figure to Lose His...
No matter what else he accomplishes in life, David Brat's obituary may well read "Giant Killer" or something to that effect. The fact that the formerly obscure Randolph-Macon College Economics...
View ArticleWhy I Believe in Gun Control
It was 12:28 on a Tuesday. I opened my Twitter app expecting to see selfies, tweets about upcoming finals and Buzzfeed quizzes. Instead, modifications of the same headline flooded my timeline. Fatal...
View ArticleThe Struggle for Immigration Reform Contradicts Our 'Democratic Ideals'
We are so caught up in the partisan games being played over immigration reform that we have lost sight of the long lasting, nonpolitical effects that failing to pass reform will have on the lives of...
View ArticlePay Your Own Way Government Has a Body Count
Earlier this month, a mother of seven kids died in a jail in Philadelphia. A judge had locked her up because she hadn't paid a bill of roughly $2,000. The bill was from the government for fines and...
View ArticleValley of the Undocumented
Inspired by the millions of young people who live in the United States with the very real fear that they could lose a family member to deportation, "Valley of the Undocumented" is a short film directed...
View ArticleWhy Are Conservatives Celebrating the Vergara Decision?
Conservatives, even more than most people, think of themselves as principled. Conservative principles, they insist, consist of certain fundamental verities that have stood the test of time and cannot...
View ArticleRobert Bergdahl's Beard Is Not the Threat
As a Sikh American, I am dumbfounded by the irresponsible Islamophobic discourse that took place on two recent Fox News national broadcasts, The O'Reilly Factor and Fox and Friends, in which Robert...
View ArticleFederal Student Loans
President Obama's executive order easing repayment requirements on federal student loans would enable students to manage their growing debt burdens more easily. But even the best of intentions cannot...
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