The Remarkable Resilience of This Socialism Thing
The timing was perfect – on May 1, President Obama would tell the University of Michigan graduates they ought to be able to discuss politics civilly, ...
For a (bleep)ing Communist, You Sure Know Your Baseball: Conversations with Lester Rodney
One of the more remarkable aspects of the 2007 HBO documentary on the Brooklyn Dodgers was the inclusion of Lester Rodney as a commentator. Up until his death ...
Health Care Rationing or Just Common Sense?
The media continues to produce bombastic reports regarding health care reform full of scare tactics from both sides. One of the buzz words used to scare people is the word ...
Prisoner of the State, and Why It’s Relevant Today
I hate to follow up my last article about the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre with yet another Tiananmen Square-related article. I realize that there is more to ...
Health Care Reform: A Lesson From the Big 3
US health care reform is the biggest domestic issue facing America today, and action is needed to fix it. But as I was reading about Chrysler’s bankruptcy the other day, ...
The Dilemmas of Democracy: Responding to Tain...
After following Asian elections for the past year, I have noticed an emerging pattern that we are likely to see more of in the coming years around the world. Elections in Iran, Afghanistan, and Sri Lanka have presented... [Read]
No Paradise: Rajapaksa’s Post-War Sri Lanka
Since the announcement last Tuesday that Sri Lankan President Mahindra Rajapaksa had defeated former army chief General Sarath Fonseka in the country’s first national election since the defeat of the separatist LTTE (Liberation... [Read]
Oh, Massachusetts!
There’s sure been enough harsh talk around the health care bills coming out of the House and Senate – and I mean from people who support universal health insurance – forget the Tea Baggers and the Rush Limbaugh audience... [Read]
Future of Afghanistan Complicated by Election...
The Afghan presidential elections have ended. And I’m sure I’m not the only one to who finds the outcome thoroughly unsatisfying. After vehemently denying that his campaign had engaged in massive voting fraud, President... [Read]
Prospects for Change in Burma: Too Many Wild ...
From the US, Burma (more recently known as Myanmar) has appeared for the past two decades to be a global pariah, ruled by an isolated, paranoid, and power-hungry military notorious for its suppression of human rights, government... [Read]
Why Another Karzai Government May be Bad for ...
If you read the news (in the US anyway) it is common knowledge that what is most important in the current Afghan elections is not necessarily who wins, but that the elections be seen as legitimate and transparent by the Afghan... [Read]
Our Foreign Policy Minsky Moment
If there can be any kind of silver lining to our ongoing “Great Recession” it might be that it has elevated the level of economic discussion, at least slightly. For instance, when’s the last time you heard anyone... [Read]
Nuclear Posture Review: Oops! We Missed One!
In one of the more remarkable public course changes Washington has yet seen, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has added Israel’s name to the previously released short list of exceptions to the general policies articulated... [Read]
American Foreign Policy Scripted by Dead Germ...
A recent headline, “Snuff out militant Islam’s lethal spark – kill bin Laden,” brought to mind a friend’s story about a graduate student he’d once had. This student had felt himself seriously wronged... [Read]
Lost in Translation: Electronic Records and H...
A typical day at work will invariably find me hunched over a piece of paper, staring at a jumble of illegible loops and lines, trying to figure out what on earth five loops and a squiggle is supposed to convey to the reader. No,... [Read]
Expected to Fail: Making the Familiar Strange...
The achievement gap between White and Minority students – as demonstrated through achievement tests, years of schooling, high school graduation and, more generally, outcomes – is formidable and shocking.The NAEP (National... [Read]
Gallup, Abortion, and Shades of Gray
With the economy, health care reform, environmental regulation, and other important issues being widely discussed in policy circles, it would be easy for one to forget about wedge issues, such as abortion. However, with the... [Read]
The Empire Strikes Out: How Baseball Sold US Foreign Policy and Promoted the American Way Abroad
by Robert Elias,... [More] Comics aficionados may remember Bizarro World (or something like that), an ugly, angular, twisted parallel universe... [More] I think I can safely assume that Teabaggers believe only white Christians go to heaven, that the Big Bang and... [More] The party of “fiscal responsibility” (ignore the last eight years when a non-Democrat, non-black guy... [More]
