Stop the Violence in Kiev
We are at the computer drinking coffee, and there are people being killed all around the world in a search for freedom. My friend from Kiev, Ukraine, just sent me videos of the violence in her city...
View ArticleAfter Death Row in Texas, I'm Fighting to End the Death Penalty
My name is Kerry Max Cook, but for two decades, I was known as "Cook, Execution number 600." Innocent of the murder and rape I was accused of in 1977, my home became a tiny death row cell in Texas,...
View ArticleGays and Rights
It is never too late to give up our prejudices. Henry David Thoreau, Walden There are things to be grateful for. Our bigotry is much more civilized than bigotry found in other countries. Just compare....
View ArticleReturn to Lender: Postal Banking Can Bring Equity to Communities
Your friendly local post office may have an honorable history, but it's facing tough times, including a fiscal crisis and, more generally, a struggle to keep pace with growing digital communication...
View ArticleSuppose Amazon Decided Not to Sell to Anyone Who Had an Abortion?
Suppose McDonald's would not serve anyone who had been divorced? Suppose Walmart would not hire any mothers who had a child born out of wedlock? Suppose hospitals would not treat anyone who used...
View ArticleUkrainian Tango on the Brink: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back?
Co-authored by Maksymilian Czuperski After several days of fighting on the streets of Kiev, it finally seems that President Viktor Yanukovych has seized on the quickly shrinking window for...
View ArticleAre the Republicans Serious About Mobility?
The GOP's response to widening inequality has long been similar to Sinclair Lewis's Babbitt: "The sooner a man learns he isn't going to be coddled, and he needn't expect a lot of free grub and, uh, all...
View ArticleCapitalism 4.0 & Neuroplasticity of the Collective Brain
I have just returned from an interesting experience in Washington. D.C.: a panel discussion with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The event was sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a...
View ArticleThe Democrats' Koch Problem
With less than seven months until the midterm elections, the biggest challenge Democrats face isn't the Affordable Care Act or the President's popularity, it's the millions of dollars being spent by...
View ArticleKhamenei Is Pessimistic About Nuclear Negotiations
In a speech on February 17 Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei repeated what he had said almost a year earlier on 21 March 2013, namely, that due to the insistence by President Hassan Rouhani...
View ArticleAn Open Letter to Governor Jan Brewer
Dear Governor Brewer, I love Arizona. I grew up there, a proud honors graduate of Saguaro High School, where I was president of the Teen-Age Republicans. Indeed, I was such a good teen-age Republican...
View ArticleSunday Roundup
Tonight's closing ceremony marks the end of the 2014 Winter Olympics. From Bode Miller's tears to Kate Hansen's dance moves; from America's first Ice Dancing gold to Bob Costas's gold medal in...
View ArticleWhy Anti-Intellectualism Is Dumb
History In 1642, the Puritan John Cotton said, "the more learned and witty you bee, the more fit to act for Satan will you bee." Today, more than three and a half centuries later, sound science is...
View ArticleMindful Politics
We have seen a huge transfer of wealth from the middle class to the wealthiest one percent. In the late 1970s the top one percent accounted for 9 percent of real income in the country. Today, they...
View ArticlePatriots Come in All Shapes, Sizes and Talents
In the land of the free and the home of the brave I don't understand why Madison Rising couldn't feel free enough to create their own rendition of our National Anthem and brave enough to sing it at...
View ArticleConflict and Culture at New York's Jewish Museum
In December I enjoyed announcing to the guards at The Jewish Museum that my name was Sigmund Freud, and that I was coming for the Wish You Were Here event. I died in 1939 (and it was enough already),...
View ArticleSochi Games Dazzled, But Should Not Blind
The 2014 Sochi Winter Games ended with a bang. From the iridescent blue lines hanging above performers to the paintings in tribute to the great writers, the images of the closing ceremony reflected...
View ArticleFelony Disenfranchisement Laws Have a Long, Shameful History
It's not every day that the nation's chief law enforcement officer and a Republican senator from Kentucky agree on something. But that's exactly what's happening this month, with Attorney General Eric...
View ArticleDubai Comes of Age
When I look out of the windows of my 25th-floor apartment in Dubai, I see the Persian Gulf shimmering a few blocks away. Cruise ships are parked at the dockyard, and in the blue waters beyond a steady...
View ArticleTurkey and Iran's Growing Alliance
Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan's visit to Iran last month symbolized a pivot toward Tehran and a shift in Ankara's Middle East foreign policy. Declaring a desire to stand "shoulder to shoulder" with...
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