Sunday, March 9, 2014

Modern Love

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Some people have jobs that are often very disconnected from everyday life. But Daniel Jones ’ job is a form of daily life incarnate. As t...
Thursday, March 6, 2014

Is education the only route to economic equality?

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I think we can all stipulate that we continue to witness growing income inequality in America. Class mobility is at an all time low and i...

The Making of Network

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Most of you know that the mad prophet the airwaves was Howard Beale. The very idea that we can listen to a clip from Network , made 38 years...
Tuesday, March 4, 2014

What if the government got really good at technology and felt it had to protect us from ourselves?

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When we think about the cutting edge of technology, our thoughts usually turn to Silicon Valley, or to other tech centers around ...
Sunday, March 2, 2014

James Meredith, Civil Rights and the rise of Black Power

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The recent debate and court challenge to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 reminds us of what was the once and future fragility of registering b...

Statistics never lie...That's the first lie

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Years ago the Wall Street Journal ran an ad campaign referring to itself as the “Daily Diary of the American Dream.” Today, we might say th...
Friday, February 28, 2014

Is Cold War strategy relevant to dealing with Russia today?

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Amid the violence and upheaval in the Ukraine, and the Russian response, a debate has broken out in Washington about the relevance of Cold ...
Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Batter Up

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As sports stories go, the legendary rivalry between the Giants and Dodgers, is one of the best and most enduring. Yet it’s a rivalry that ha...
Tuesday, February 25, 2014

In politics, demographics are destiny

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We know that there are powerful demographic trends taking place in the US. That the economic divide in America is widenin...
Sunday, February 23, 2014

The Twilight of the American Enlightment

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For those that didn’t live through the 50’s and early 60’s, Mad Men has given us a clearer idea of so many of the changes that were impactin...
Saturday, February 22, 2014

Why the collapse of Detroit matters

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Jane Jacobs, writing about the life and death of cities, reminds us that people living in vigorous cultures typically treasure those culture...
Thursday, February 20, 2014

Still Life with Bread Crumbs

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When we hear talk of the reinvention of our lives, I think re reflexively think this is something we do in our 30’s or 40’s or even 50’s. T...

Hillary

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Twenty two years ago a relatively unknown Governor of Arkansas was on the ropes in his presidential campaign. He had been accused of marita...
Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Could we have won the space race without the German scientists?

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Few questions occupy us more today than what do we need to know and when do we do we need to know it, with respect to what our government is...
Sunday, February 16, 2014

The Strange Origins of Modern Medicine

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Years from now, we will look back on the way we treat cancer today, with poisons and chemo and radiation, and we’ll look at it exactly the s...
Saturday, February 15, 2014

Careless People

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When we deconstruct the essential elements of our culture today, celebrity culture, the privilege of wealth, the importance of popular cult...

The Up Side of Down

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How many of us have taken great leaps out of fear? How often has a failure, or being fired, or jilted resulted in being forced to take acti...

Writers, Musicans and other Fans Remember

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We are often quick to use the term “cultural phenomenon.” Through the back lens of history though, few things truly are. Yet fifty years a...