Wendy Wasserstein
Oxford University Press mourns the passing of Wendy Wasserstein. LINK to her obituary in The New York Times.
The War That Made America: A Review
Colin G. Calloway, author of Scratch of a Pen: 1763 and the Transformation of America reviews the PBS documentary “The War That Made America”: Looking back, it often seems difficult for modern-day Americans to see beyond the Revolution and understand the colonial era as much more than just a prelude to that nation-forming event. Until […]
“Hamas faces a terrible dilemma”: Shlomo Ben-Ami on the Palestinian election results
You predicted earlier this week that Abbas would resign if Hamas won and he seems to have done just that today. What is your reaction to this? and Who is running the PA now? The results of the elections do not affect the status of President Abbas, although his own party was defeated. The key […]
The Palestinian Elections: 5 Questions for Shlomo Ben-Ami
Shlomo Ben-Ami is a former Foreign Minister of Israel and has been a key participant in many Arab-Israeli peace conferences, most notably the Camp David Summit in 2000. President Clinton says that his new book, Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy, “should be read by everyone who wants a just and lasting […]
“Oh, my God, they’re going to burn us up!”
An excerpt from Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice by Raymond Arsenault. Arsenault will soon be on tour, roughly following the route of the original Freedom Rides. Click here for a map of the Rides/his tour. On May 14, 1961, the two groups of Freedom Riders left Atlanta an hour apart. The […]
Slate picks up The Undercover Economist!
Slate.com readers got a taste on Saturday of what Financial Times readers have been enjoying for a long time now. Slate picked up the latest installment of Tim Harford’s “The Undercover Economist” column from the FT. Which economic mystery of daily life does Harfod solve this week? “The Mystery of the Rude Waiter: Why my […]
Lobbying Reform
Norman Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann opined in the New York Times yesterday that Congressional Republicans should go beyond their current proposals for lobbying reform and adopt rules changes, like 15 minute time limits on all votes and credible ethics oversight, that will ensure “a return to the regular order and to a reasonable deliberative […]
Pride by Michael Eric Dyson
“A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the […]
Russia and A New Dawn for Nuclear Power
by Harm de Blij Since New Year’s Day, a troubling series of events has caused Europe to wonder just what kind of neighbor Russia plans to be. By virtue of a network of pipelines leading from Russian reserves to European consumers, Europe has become strongly dependent on Russian natural gas, now accounting for nearly one-quarter […]
Rebuilding Sudan
Charlayne Hunter-Gault reported yesterday on a group of American women who have traveled to Southern Sudan to help build a girl’s school there. Reporting for NPR’s “All Things Considered,” Hunter-Gault follows the Americans, who call their group My Sister’s Keeper, to the village of Akon in the predominantly Christian, southern part of Sudan. One of […]
Resolute We Are
Resolute we are, usually from January 1st, until just about now, right around Martin Luther King Day. Perhaps it is no coincidence that our individual, personal resolve founders just as we’re celebrating a holiday commemorating one of America’s great heroes—a man who was committed to combating the systemic forces at the heart of so many individual troubles.
Sharon’s legacy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Questions for Shlomo Ben-Ami
What are the implications of Ariel Sharon’s stroke for the Israeli government? It is clear that, even if he survives, Sharon is out of the political game. Constitutionally, there is going to be no problem. The transition to a new leader/leadership will be smooth. Israel is a solid democracy. What does the end of Sharon’s […]
Get on the Bus: Freedom Riders
Ray Arsenault, the author of Freedom Riders spoke with Terry Gross on Fresh Air today. Arsenault was preceded on the show by the rebroadcast of a segment with James Farmer who was a co-founder of CORE, the Congress on Racial Equality. Arsenault’s segment ends with the CORE chorus singing a delightful version of “Hit the […]
The politics of baseball, the politics of Cuba
Roberto González Echevarría, the author of The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball wrote in the NYTimes editorial page yesterday on the US refusal to allow the Cuban national team to travel to the US for the World Baseball Classic in March. Echevarría supports the ban and says that protesting it is akin […]
$2 trillion, with a “t”
According to Joseph Stiglitz, the Iraq War will cost the U.S. $2 trillion, 10 times more than the original estimate of $200 billion given before the war started. Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, an economist from Harvard, whose joint paper “The Economic Costs of the Iraq War” was released last week, arrive at the larger figure […]
Hurricanes and lemmings
The New York Times carried a Q&A entitled “Conversation with Kerry Emanuel” yesterday. The lead was Emanuel’s apparent shift on the connection between warmer oceans and the intensity of hurricane winds. Still, Emanuel says “not so fast” to those who see Katrina as evidence of global warming. But conservatives should take note that America’s inability […]