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It would seem that the remarkable events that are taking place in the Middle East may have finally placed 9/11 into some kind of historical context. The underpinnings of the Iraq war, the war in Afghanistan and the overall war on terror, may be morphing into a new, smarter and more careful use of American power. If this is true, then where does Osama Bin Laden
fit into the equation? Is he still relevant, does his presence still matter and should he even be a focus of American and Western efforts? Michael Scheuer, counterterrorism analyst and former chief of the CIA's bin Laden Unit thinks he still does matter.
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The world is a dramatically changing place. Recent events in Egypt and Tunisia show that tweets and can sometimes have the power of tanks. We see that soft power has a much lower barrier to entry, but as in Iran, it can still be overtaken by repression. Non State actors play a larger and larger role in the power dynamic of the world. Some for good and some, for evil. If America is to continue to try and sit astride the world, how do we and our leaders adapt to these changing dynamics as power shifts, becomes more diffuse, and far more complex in its expression.
Over the past 60 years millions and millions of words have been written abut the conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians. The net result of most of those words has been to perpetuate the conflict. Yet if we focus on one story, a very personal story, of one man, truly dedicated to healing and to peace, we learn a great deal more. 
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Many think of the late 1960’s and early 70’s as the source of the great cultural shifts from the post WWII traditions, to the more individualistic world of today. In fact, for woman those changes happened long before. The approval of the birth control pill in 1959 and the publication of Betty Fridan's "Feminine Mystique" in 1963 were the real watersheds. Certainly we've seen in the fictional lives of April Wheeler in Revolutionary Road and Betty Draper in Mad Men, the essence of the stirrings of that time.
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Young women today are succeeding at geometric rates. The number of young women graduating from colleges, from law schools and graduate schools is far out stripping young men. Women are succeeding in a remarkable range of careers, including politics and corporate boardrooms, heretofore places built with the proverbial glass ceiling. 
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One only has to look at the range of reactions to the Egyptian crises to understand the scope of foreign policy ideology. From the cautious, measured reaction of the White House to the lunatic rantings of Glen Beck, each reflects a particular school of thought, a kind of theoretical paradigm through which to see the world. Imagine if this applied to an invasion from Zombies. If the Zombies showed up tomorrow, what would our official national position be on the undead? What might be the social, political and foreign policy considerations be and most of all how would the Zombie threat effect Israel?
As each day goes by, we take another step towards recovery from the financial crisis that almost took down America's and the world's economies. Now, with time, we have the luxury of thinking about what really happened and why. The recent report of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, put in place by the President and approved by Congress, is a step in that direction. Although the report and analysis was divided along partisan lines, its 500+ pages of facts have not been disputed and gives us a sold basis to continue discussing what happened and how we might avoid such crises in the future.
Among all the problems that young people need worry about today, perhaps the one that will haunt them the longest are the issues of Global Warming and Climate Change. Environmental writer, Mark Hertsgaard, in his new book Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth, describes the future for roughly two billion young people around the globe, under the age of twenty-five, who will be coping with ever-worsening climate change for the rest of their lives.
This past week, as we've watched events unfold in Egypt, we couldn’t help but be moved by some of he powerful photographic images, some of violence and even death. In fact, iconic images of death, images such as those from Vietnam, 9/11 and Dallas, to name a few, are images that will be with us forever, they are in fact seared into our collective consciousness. Powerful and emotional as these image are, what impact do they have on our rational view of events? Do they enhance or distract? Do they provide facts, or sometimes distract from the real story and context. These questions are tackled by Barbie Zelizer in her book About to Die: How News Images Move the Public
. Zelizer is the Chair of Communication and the Director of the Scholars Program in Culture and Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.
Back in the 60’s and early 70’s we harbored a fantasy about a gender neutral world. We thought that, if only we gave dolls to boys and guns to girls, we could turn back the clock on culturalization and achieve a kind of equality in the battle of the sexes.
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As we wake up each morning to a new geopolitical crises, in countries we usually don’t think about very often, it's more important then ever to understand how the world works. We talk about globalization and a border-less world, yet their are more nation states and political borders then ever before. Here at home we hear criticism of trans-national corporations, yet where do we think that the jobs will come from, to move much of the world out of poverty. 
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If the first rule of medicine is “do no harm,” the second rule might very well be "do not over diagnose." If all of our gleaming technology is now able to monitor even the most minute changes in our physical condition, does responding to those changes do more harm then good? In short, does the holy grail of preventative medicine really prevent disease or just spark unwanted treatment and often harmful consequences? This is the question posed by Dr. Gilbert Welch, professor at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, and the co-author of Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health
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