In 2007, Chicagoan, Nicole Sotelo, a Harvard-trained theologian and author, read a searing account of Congolese rape victims. The women, young girls and grandmothers among them, had suffered extreme sexual violence at the hands of the Inerahanwe and Hutu men responsible for the genocide in neighboring Rwanda, the Congolese army,...

The Pew Research Center's latest Global Attitudes Project survey brings interesting news. Only half of all Americans believe our culture (which I understand to be an identifier of all the things that resonate with the majority populace) is superior to others.

The earnest reporting to understand...

By page 41 of Walter Isaacson's important biography of Steve Jobs, I wanted immediately to score some LSD to replicate Mr. Jobs experience, which he called, a profound experience and one of the most important things in his life. "It reinforced my sense of what was important -- creating great...

In the wake of the Oslo explosions and the massacre on Utoyo island, we have learned so much, too much, about the protagonist and villain of the whole tragedy. His name, his face, his life, his writings will live on. He can claim something close to victory, because the electronic...

In his essay, "Is Nothing Sacred?" novelist Salman Rushdie examines the importance of literature in society, laments the state of fiction (he penned it during the nuclear fallout from his own novel), and recalls his early relationship with books.
"I grew up kissing books and bread,"...

Director Sidney Lumet's 1957 classic, 12 Angry Men, a mainstay in law and business school curriculum, that shows the influence of preconceived notions, assumptions and prejudice, and deconstructs coalition building, the art of persuasion, reciprocity, and dealmaking, is a useful film for understanding politicians involved in the debt ceiling talks.

The death of literacy and the victory of spectacle occurred a few feet from my house last week, while I was still reeling from Chris Hedges' Empire of Illusion -- The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. It happened at Northwestern University -- a not-for-profit, privately held institution...

The Guardian ran a story two weeks ago, in which Iraqi chemical engineering dilettante, Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi -- codenamed "Curveball" by somebody in espionage with an obvious sense of humor -- admitted that everything he told German interrogators about WMD in Iraq was a fabrication, a whopper,...

Soon after leaving print reporting and before settling into education and science communications, when people asked me what I did I'd say I was a "recovering" journalist. I'd usually get a laugh out of that line before the enquirer invariably launched into a broadside on biased journalism, sensational reporting, the...

I recently attended social enterprise and impact investing summits on both coasts, where social entrepreneurs, impact investors, changemakers and change-agents gathered to discuss new developments in the field.

In addition to conventional development initiatives addressing a range of social problems including the building of civil society, there were smart solutions...

The latest news that a US Government contractor in Afghanistan placed our soldiers at risk by passing off non-Afghan speakers from the US as Pashto translators, reiterates the importance of being versatile in a language other than our own in this interconnected world.

I work as an English communicator for...

After a dark, cold, and rainy winter, warm weather has finally come to Paris, brightening its days and turning even the most crabby Parisian's mood sunny. Daffodils are in bloom and the cafés, parks, and banks of the Seine fill with people, animating the city. But whatever the weather, the...

I spent my childhood in Malaysia, a multicultural, polyglot fusion chamber skewed towards polytheism, where people gave their due to all the gods in order to hedge their bets and cover all the bases. A Unitarian worldview had its advantages even for the secular minded: extended public holidays, every month...

Republicans: The Party of Whiners

Sen. Phil Gramm, economic adviser to John McCain's Presidential campaign, got it only half wrong when he called us a nation of whiners. He would have nailed it if he'd hurled the charge with more accuracy -- at his own party and its...

In a recent interview with Newsweek, President Obama mentioned seeing the latest Star Trek movie and that everybody was saying he was Spock. In another interview a while ago, the First Lady said, "The President is a very rational man."

This explains a lot. The President's refusal to investigate the...

The Obama administration's decision to reverse the 18-year Pentagon ban on photography of soldiers' caskets returning to Dover Air Force Base is an important one for the public. Leaving the decision to military families to accept, or reject, public recognition of the service of their deceased is a respectful, Solomon-esque...

In Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag's meditation on images depicting the atrocities of wartime, she cites Virginia Woolf's lacerating indictment of war, written in 1936 as the Spanish Civil War was unfolding. Woolf's polemic was a response to a lawyer who had engaged her on the issue of...

Three weeks before the election -- as John McCain was flailing about for a message to connect with voters to resurrect his comatose campaign, and settled on Nobel Laureate in Economics and also Bad Plumbing, Joe Wurzelbacher, to inspire us all -- Ed Rollins, GOP strategist and CNN commentator, tried...

It's a truth universally acknowledged, but rarely spoken about, that one of the unwritten obligations of spouses is to save their partners from themselves. Who else but the person who loves you can save you from your own vanity and stupidity?

The recipient of this mother lode of spousal...

At 6.15 am yesterday -- as the people of Illinois willed themselves to wake up to the cold and gloom to put in a day's work that didn't involve theft, plunder, or chicanery -- our Governor, Rod Blagojevich, was arrested on evidence that he attempted all three.

The Governor was...