The most fundamental causes of the popular uprisings across the Arab world are of course peoples' desire for freedom and rule of law, and their disgust at corruption and oppression. Few times in history do totalitarian or authoritarian regimes successfully repress their people for more than two generations, and zero...
Posted February 13, 2010 | 17:36:54 (EST)
A lot has been written on the "too big to fail" problem: the perception that some firms are so large that their failures would lead to systemic failure for the entire economy and the related conclusion that companies in that category should be bailed out to prevent a massive breakdown...
Posted February 3, 2010 | 17:31:07 (EST)
It is interesting that what we are witnessing right now is just simply the digitization of books formerly printed in paper. For over 500 years, books have been written and conceived with Gutenberg's guidelines in mind (Gutenberg is the inventor of the mechanical printing press).
But since the advent...
Posted March 30, 2009 | 16:23:30 (EST)
Often in life I am sure you wonder if you had met a person before. Have our lives crossed paths before a more recent episode? When was the first time we met? Were we together in a particular place -- whether at school, or at a conference, or talk, or...
Posted January 19, 2009 | 17:32:20 (EST)
I was very proud to support Obama's Presidential campaign from the primaries all the way to his historic victory.
And like most of the nation and the world, I have high hopes for his leadership and administration.
It is from this vantage point that I am so enormously turned off...
Posted December 1, 2008 | 14:36:48 (EST)
Nazila Fathi reported in the New York Times that Iran recently executed a man it claimed was a "spy" and has arrested another one also for "spying."
This second man, Hossein Derakhshan, is among the most famous Persian bloggers. Hossein is jailed and threatened with the same fate...
Posted November 3, 2008 | 16:15:00 (EST)
At the onset of the Iraq war in 2003, Saddam Hussein's media clamored about the Baathist Army's impending victory. Its conviction was so strong, you had to wonder if they possessed information that we in the West were not privy to. Then, within hours of the invasion, the house of...
Posted October 9, 2008 | 13:07:48 (EST)
Yesterday at a rally when John McCain asked, "Who is Barack Obama?", a supporter shouted back, "Terrorist."
And at a rally led by Sarah Palin, when she mischaracterized a New York Times story as pointing to an alliance between Obama and Bill Ayers, someone screamed "Kill him."
Neither...
Posted July 4, 2008 | 13:58:51 (EST)
As we gear towards the general election, a word of caution for US Presidential candidates about an important constituency that will not vote for them.
According to conventional wisdom, Presidential candidates can take campaign stances that will curry favor with particular constituencies of voters, only to be forgiven for adjusting...
Posted September 20, 2007 | 12:29:00 (EST)
In War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, Chris Hedges argues that conflict creates a common enemy, and from that we derive a sense of community, commonality, and shared interest. But what is going on in Israel and Palestine is no longer a conflict -- it...

Posted March 29, 2011 | 12:16:35 (EST)