WARNING: Homelessness is Hazardous to Your Health
The Surgeon General should issue a warning that homelessness is hazardous to your health. It is no surprise that being homeless, especially living on the street for long periods of time, has negative...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Privileges: One Contribution to Vassar College's 'Privilege Campaign'
In December of 2013, colleagues of mine at Vassar College organized Photographs from Vassar College's Privilege Campaign, "... a gallery showing of Vassar administrators, faculty and staff portraits...
View ArticleDo We Have a New App for the Injured and Dying Children of Gaza?
Our last remaining bit of shame is being dot-commed, with a young girl's pixilated eyes looking back at us from her murder. I'm watching this atrocity with up to date technology, as I sit here typing....
View ArticleA Jury of My Peers: The Aspen Action Workshop
I came to the Aspen Action Forum with a mission: to leverage the collective insights of the Forum participants in order to provide guidance as to how to take a powerful social innovation to scale in a...
View ArticlePolice Behavior, James Brown, and the Struggle Continues
After kicking off "Freedom Summer 2014" and opening National Action Network's Birmingham, Alabama office last week, I headed home to deal with yet another police case in New York City. Eric Garner, the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Student Debt: Paying Back the American Dream
My grandfather suffered from black lung, which he caught during his years toiling in the coal mines of Kentucky. For him, sending his son to college meant that my father would never develop his same...
View ArticleIn Central America, War Without a Name and Refugees Without Papers
The child migrant crisis has increased awareness in the United States about violence in Central America, and for the first time, people are considering the possibility that some migrants from the...
View ArticleThe Politics of Hostility: "If Librels Are For It, We're Agin It" Doesn't Cut It
[This piece probably appeared in newspapers in my conservative congressional District in Virginia.] How did it come to this? How did our political life in America get to be so drenched in hostility?...
View ArticleWhat Can You See Across a Border?
We recently returned from a two-week trip through Canada. We appreciate Canada and have enjoyed being in most of the provinces through the years. One thing that impresses us every time is that their...
View ArticleCan Gun Control Advocates Ever Wield as Much Influence as the NRA? A Test Case
Several months ago I wrote a blog in which I pointed out that Mike Bloomberg's access to media at all levels would make him a formidable opponent of the NRA when it came to talking to non-gun owners...
View Article69 Years Later: Still Working to Prevent Another Hiroshima
Sixty-nine years ago, mushroom clouds rose over major population centers for the first (and fortunately, only) time in the history of warfare. At approximately 8:16 a.m. on August 6, 1945, the U.S....
View ArticleWhat Obama Is Still Missing in the Debate on Torture
President Obama's condemnation of torture during a White House press conference last Friday was welcome news for longtime critics of the U.S.' policy of torturing detainees in the immediate post-9/11...
View ArticleThe Gaza War: Who is Just? Who is to Blame? and Why These are the Wrong...
I've been struggling with getting my thoughts out -- writing, deleting and re-writing -- since I know that what I have to say may upset my Israeli and Palestinian friends alike, as well as their...
View ArticleTaxes
"I am proud to be paying taxes in the United States," said the late TV celebrity Arthur Godfrey. "The only thing is - I could be just as proud for half the money." In an era when conservative political...
View Article'The Invisible Bridge': 10 or So Questions with Rick Perlstein
I sat down a few weeks ago with Rick Perlstein, author of Before the Storm and Nixonland, to discuss his latest, The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan. The book, released...
View ArticleRestoring the Promise of the American Dream
We applaud the new Majority Leader's message calling for civility and bipartisanship in Congress. Kevin McCarthy, the new Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, calls for civility and a...
View ArticleWhat Has This Gaza War Changed?
When the current conflict between Israel and Hamas began, it looked much like a resumption of the conflict that has led to similarly tragic consequences in recent years. Israel was poised to set back...
View ArticleHard Choices in a Time of Extremism
In a Time of Extremism, Extreme Competence and Perseverance Carry The Day Hillary Clinton could not have known (could she?) when writing Hard Choices that in July 2014 the world would be in a virtual...
View ArticleExpand FMLA -- Good for Women, Good for Families, Good for All
The 21st anniversary of the implementation of the Family and Medical Leave Act on August 5 provides an important moment to examine how far our nation has come since President Clinton signed FMLA into...
View ArticleClik here to view.