Rita Lobo

Brazilian journalist, writer and activist

Last week the governments of Rio and São Paulo, Brazil's two biggest cities raised the cost of the bus fare by R$0.20 (£0.06). It might sound like a negligible amount of money, but it was enough to trigger the biggest public uprisings the country has seen in over two decades.

Robert Scheer

Editor, Truthdig.com; Author, 'The Great American Stickup'

For defense contractors, the government officials who write them mega checks, and the hawks in the media who cheer them on, the name of the game is threat inflation. And no one has been better at it than the folks at Booz Allen Hamilton.

Julie Jensen

Wife, mother, digital media veteran, stroke survivor

I'm sure I'd still be searching for fulfillment if I didn't receive a wake-up call on September 30, 2004. I was 26 when I was wheeled into the ER and a nurse asked if I knew what was happening. "I think I had a stroke," I muttered. "Ma'am, you are HAVING a stroke."

Mike Hogan

Executive Arts and Entertainment Editor, The Huffington Post Media Group

Don Draper doesn't kill people. He doesn't cook or deal drugs. He doesn't oversee an organized-crime syndicate. Hell, he doesn't even use the F-word. But there's no question he's a bastard. He lies. He cheats. He undermines his colleagues in ways both overt and underhanded. And yet, in spite of it all, there has always been something about Don that makes us love him anyway. We know what a scoundrel he is, but we just can't quit him.

Nick Turse

Managing Editor, TomDispatch.com

Ten years after Washington began pouring taxpayer dollars into counterterrorism and stability efforts across Africa, the continent has experienced profound changes, just not those the U.S. sought.

Mike Julianelle

Blogger, DadandBuried.com

Of course, being exhausted is not just for parents. Once you hit a certain age, energy is just harder to come by; pretty much everyone I know is exhausted all the time. It's just life. But as a parent, there is one primary reason I am always so tired.

J.C. McKeown

Author

Sex hasn't changed much; we are still on that same quest, and many of the sexual attitudes from two and a half thousand years ago are still around today -- but there are also some radical differences.

Shimon Peres

President of the State of Israel

We don't have enemies. There is no country, no religion, which we consider an enemy. Our only enemies are those who reject peace, sow division, and spread hatred.

Rev. Al Sharpton

President, National Action Network

Nobody should be denied the right to vote, or face additional hurdles because of a strategic method to disenfranchise them. Just as no one should be racially profiled, no one should be racially blocked from the voting booth.

Ethan Nadelmann

Executive Director, Drug Policy Alliance

The magnitude of our victories in Colorado and Washington makes what once appeared impossible -- drug law reforms grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights -- seemingly inevitable.

Grown And Flown

Authors, Goldman Sachs: The Culture of Success

I let go of the burning ambition I once held because I didn't feel as though I could hold it and three babies at the same time. My husband did not do this, my children did not do this, I did this.

DJ Louie XIV

DJ

Like the majority of our generation, knowing that we feed into our own misery by engaging in the grown-up high school cafeteria known as Twitter and emptying our increasingly scant bank-accounts on a smorgasbord of Apple products, this man has an uncanny comfort with being a complete and total hypocrite, a quality that my mom, admirably if aberrantly, does not possess. So yes, Kanye West is perhaps morally reprehensible. But he is also the most perfectly polished mirror we have.

Zach Hindin

Writer and musician based in Harlem.

Almost immediately, the press invoked George Orwell to characterize the drama unfolding around Edward Snowden's revelation of the NSA's digitally omniscient domestic surveillance program. It should have been Aldous Huxley.

Suzan Haskins and Dan Prescher

InternationalLiving.com Editors

If you're old enough to collect Social Security, there may be no better place to live right now than Latin America.

Dean Baker

Co-director, CEPR; author, 'The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive'

It isn't often that progressives in the United States have much to celebrate. After all, the news has swung between bad and worse for most of the last three decades. That is why we should be celebrating the victory over the Campaign to Fix the Debt and its efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare.

Don Bacigalupi

President, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

We live now in permissive times -- art historically speaking -- when any and all art-making approaches are potentially viable, especially so if they riff on, reuse, or recycle the past. And so to be confronted with a monumental example of Minimalist art may be jarring.

Eric E. Sterling

President, Criminal Justice Policy Foundation

You would think that Eric Holder, the first African American Attorney General, and Barack Obama, the first African American President, would be vigilant that there was no racial discrimination in the Justice Department of their Administration. You would think.

Daddy-O

Hip-hop historian, music technologist, founder of Stetsasonic

There is no political correctness in my rant. Just facts. Without diversity, there is no hip-hop, even if you choose to call it that. Hip-hop is not a reality TV show. Hip-hop is not a pair of pants sagging. Hip-hop has founders, innovation, and purpose.

Simon Johnson

Author, 'White House Burning: The Founding Fathers, Our National Debt, and Why It Matters To You'

Global megabanks are pushing back hard against the idea that additional reforms are needed -- beyond what is supposed to be implemented as part of the Dodd-Frank 2010 financial legislation.

Jill Knapp

Adjunct Professor in Psychology

We all compromise -- a concert of a band we don't like here, a restaurant we could do without there -- but make sure you aren't changing to the point where you don't recognize the person you're becoming

Curtis Valentine

Education Advocate

While school system governance, school choice and school closings have dominated recent discussions about school reform, the beginning of summer break is a perfect time to highlight the impact summer learning loss has on efforts to close achievement gaps.

Jared Bernstein

Fmr. Obama administration economist; CNBC and MSNBC contributor

Contrary to conservative claims that the food stamp, or SNAP, program has run amok, participation is high for a reason: there are still a lot of folks struggling to provide their families with adequate nutrition.

Adam Grant

Wharton professor and author, 'Give and Take'

In a classic study, sociologist Mark Granovetter showed that people were 58 percent more likely to get a new job through weak ties than strong ties. How could acquaintances be more helpful than good friends?

Claudia Zelevansky

Writer, director, educator & arts consultant

The city in the summer is a special case. If you have ever spent more than 30 seconds on a subway platform during rush hour in August, you will know of what I speak.

Randall Rothenberg

President and CEO, Interactive Advertising Bureau

Yesterday, Cannes Lions Award winners were revealed and I attended the AOL Makers dinner where I was able to talk with some of the most amazing women in history who are still trailblazing today.

Glennon Melton

Blogger, Momastery

But then he said, "Listen, mom. It's okay that you're not perfect. Nobody's perfect. You know, when you're not perfect, I remember that I don't have to be perfect, either. It's a relief sometimes."

Foodbeast

Seriously, guys. Your design team had one job. You couldn't have at least gotten the old man's uniform right?

Maureen Ryan

TV critic, The Huffington Post

Tonight we found out that Bob is not truly a product of the great state of Wisconsin (your loss, Cheddarheads). His identity is as thin and fragile as the pathetic map tacked up on his office wall.

Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett

Authors, 'Going to Tehran'; Penn State Professor and American University Senior Lecturer

If the Obama administration wants to engage a new Rohani administration effectively, and to put U.S.-Iranian relations on a more positive trajectory, it will need to overhaul U.S. policy in four fundamental ways.