Thursday, October 29, 2015

Eric Bogosian tells of the plot that avenged the Armenian Genocide

›
Everything starts somewhere. Even very bad things. Many of the tremors we face today had their roots in the Ottoman Empire, in the run up...
Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Can the under two hour marathon be accomplished?

›
This Sunday over 50,000 people will run in the NYC Marathon. For many participants, part of the appeal is to be part of something larger and...
Friday, October 23, 2015

Is Robin Cook afraid to go to the Hospital?

›
Most of us will go into the hospital at some point. When we do, we might be subject to anesthesia, even for a minor procedures. What goes o...
Thursday, October 22, 2015

How Frederick Forsyth's real life exceeded his expectations

›
In the movie Broadcast News,  written my James L Brooks, William Hurt asks his colleague, “what do you do when your real life exceeds your d...
Thursday, October 15, 2015

Sanitized Death from Above

›
In the desire to go to war, there is always the effort to sanitize warfare. Shock and Awe, Death from Above, are all about disconnecting ma...
Monday, October 12, 2015

Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government

›
Before Dick Cheney, before Homeland Security, even before the Cold War itself, there existed forces within the US Government bent on shaping...

Syria Burning

›
The US seems to be giving up on training Syrian rebels. The Russians continue the bombing of ISIS targets, even while some of their missile...
Sunday, October 11, 2015

Is the country even worse off than it seems?

›
As a nation we have often faced existential crisis. The Civil War, the onset of the industrial revolution, the robber barons, the great dep...
Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Detroit once symbolized America

›
Every great city has it’s defining era. Not always good, but certainly one that shapes its fortunes and reinforces its place in the urban p...
Monday, October 5, 2015

A Not So Random Walk Through L.A.

›
The lyrics say that “nobody walks in L.A.” That certainly has been true, in a city whose inhabitants were long hermetically sealed inside t...
Friday, October 2, 2015

War of the Whales: An environmental adventure story

›
We all know the old bromide that you can’t fight City Hall. Well imagine how tough it must be to take on the US Navy.  Especially if the ca...
Thursday, September 24, 2015

This woman changed and defined Hollywood in the 70's

›
Hollywood is a like sports or politics. Each generation gives us stars and personalities that both reflect the culture and tenor of the tim...
Monday, September 21, 2015

War Correspondent to the World's Women

›
The world today is a dangerous, unstable and violent place. And while Stephen Pinker tells us that today is less violent than at any other ...
Wednesday, September 16, 2015

The Moral Panic of the 1980's

›
We see today in the debate regarding immigration, a little bit about the the ways that falsehood and mass hysteria, mixed with doses of fear...
Monday, September 14, 2015

The Making of Asian America

›
For reasons that are both complicated and simplistic, immigration has become the issues of our time. Fifty years ago the passage of the Imm...
Monday, September 7, 2015

Labor Day for Domestic Workers

›
Imagine one movement the combines every contemporary progressive social issue; race, immigration, Civil Rights, the labor movement, gender d...
Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Is College Football worth the cost?

›
In spite of a rough stock market and a bumpy economy there is one business, not a tech company, that has grown revenues from $229 million in...
Tuesday, September 1, 2015

The Gift of Failure

›
I’ve often told the story of a newly minted teacher considering her first job. She had several offers, but in the end there were two that w...
Monday, August 31, 2015

The Joy of Being Scared - Remembering Wes Craven

›
Through the efforts of both critics and audiences, we’ve come to understand that “genre films,” are just as significant as mainstream films....

Oliver Sacks R.I.P

›
How do we navigate the world in spite of change?  It's one of the central tenants of modern society. Over and over again,  Oliver Sacks ...