In his speech at the memorial service for the victims of last week’s shooting in Tucson Arizona, President Obama took a moment to reflect on the state of the nation. He urged that bickering and the now typical lack of civil discourse in this country should not be allowed to fill the gap behind this [...]
A few days ago, MSNBC hosted David Remnick – editor of the New Yorker and author of “Bridge”, a biography of President Obama – on its “Morning Joe” show. At the beginning of the show they discussed the tragedy that occurred in Arizona last Saturday. I have read numerous articles this week about the shooting—the centerfold of The New York [...]
On January 12th 2010, the ground shook the Caribbean and took the lives of nearly 230,000 Haitian people. Leaders all around world stepped in and promised quick relief but, now, exactly one year later, around one million people still remain homeless, crowding what remains of the capital’s streets. President Obama issued the following statement on [...]
The “Green Revolution” of the early 2000′s seems to have fizzled and died a slow death. Yet, the very serious environmental issues persist. I think that this decline in zeal has to do with the fact the environmental language was plagued with attached preconceptions due to overuse. For instance, “saving the environment” was so pervasive [...]
Over break, I read Alice Walker’s new book, written as a testimonial, Overcoming Speechlessness: A Poet Encounters the Horror in Rwanda, Eastern Congo, and Palestine/Israel. She spends a long portion of her characteristically poetic, searching writing recounting her journey crossing the Egypt-Palestine border into Palestinian territory. Here, along with the CODEPINK members, she spends time [...]
Mexico and Brazil have instituted a novel approach to fighting poverty—giving poor people money: The generic term for the program is conditional cash transfers. The idea is to give regular payments to poor families, in the form of cash or electronic transfers into their bank accounts, if they meet certain requirements. The requirements vary, but [...]
