Here is one case for why Avatar, James Cameron's sprawling science fiction epic, should win the Oscar for Best Picture at tonight's 82nd Annual Academy Awards. It is not because of the film's ground-breaking special effects, or the surprisingly imaginative and gripping plot, but because Avatar makes the viewer intensely...

In 1952, Reinhold Niebuhr wrote that "our age is involved in irony because so many dreams of our nation have been so cruelly refuted by history." But what exactly did Niebuhr mean by "irony" and to what end did he use the term?

"If strength becomes weakness because of...

On Wednesday August 5th, a CIA predator drone fired a missile into the roof a modest house in the village of Zanghara, in South Waziristan. On the roof sat a woman with her diabetic husband, who was receiving a drip infusion. That man was Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of Pakistan's...

This afternoon, I spoke with Representative Joe Courtney (CT-02) about the America's Affordable Health Choices Act -- the most promising health care reform legislation in years. We discussed politics, misinformation, hypocrisy, economic recovery, the importance of grass-roots support, and the urgent need for reform. Representative Courtney makes his compelling case...

Yesterday evening, Congressman Joe Courtney (D-CT) made a profound statement to the House Education and Labor Committee. Congressman Courtney said that the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), a government-run purchasing exchange with lower costs than similar private exchanges and without the pre-existing condition loopholes, is precisely what the America's...

WASHINGTON SQUARE, NYC - - Late on Wednesday evening, a small group of
students in the student activist organization Take Back NYU began a sit-in inside the Kimmel Marketplace. The Kimmel Marketplace is the dining hall inside the Kimmel student center and is probably the most popular...

Since the Five-Day War between Russia and Georgia in August, what many Europeans and Americans like to describe as "the West" has started to realize that Russia is back on the global stage. Perhaps more importantly, "Westerners" have started also to understand that post-Soviet Russia, like the USSR before...

Four years after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave the famous "I Have A Dream" speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, he delivered a very different lesson at the Riverside Church in New York City. There, speaking about the Vietnam War, he told his audience that "a nation...

November 4th is defined by its potential. It is a truly momentous occasion in three ways.

1. As a young American who voted in a presidential election for the first time, November 4th has the potential to be one of the most important days in my entire life

2. November...

I have absolutely no desire to join the clubs of the hyperbolic. That said, I think it is reasonable to assume that the presidential election on Tuesday has the potential to become a referendum on our country's past, present, and future.

As a nation we stand not at a crossroads...

Between having one of our senators on the sort-of losing ticket in 2000, a former governor imprisoned, a House representative with the narrowest margin of victory in congress up for reelection in 2008, the only House Republican from New England, the only state in New England to vote for Barack...

During the 2000 Republican primaries, the late David Foster Wallace spent a week following John McCain's campaign. On the trail, Wallace was writing for Rolling Stone, and he was at pains to "project the kind of edgy, vaguely dangerous vibe I imagined an RS reporter ought to give off." Reflecting...

Late in the spring of 2008, the Bush Administration released what it called a "Terror Report." Viewed through the distorted lens of the last eight years, the terror report can be viewed as a gauge of U.S. foreign policy interests.

Indeed, many of the countries listed in the report,...

Governor Sarah Palin's acceptance speech was the best horror movie I've seen in a long time. I came to this realization after Palin exclaimed that, "Al Qaida terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America, and he's worried that someone won't read them their rights." Coming from someone sworn...

DENVER - There is a curse which goes like this: "may you live in interesting times" Well, as it turns out, we do live in interesting times. The grandest Olympic Games in recent history (probably ever) just concluded in, of all places, Beijing. That couldn't have happened ten years ago,...

DENVER - After Senator Clinton's speech last night, some of her teary-eyed supporters may have wept because they felt they had missed a great opportunity to advance the cause of gender equality. In a limited way, this belief is correct. Having Barack Obama as the nominee will promote racial equality...

DENVER -- When the by-then-no-longer-presumptive presidential nominee Barack Obama takes the stage at Invesco Field on Thursday, most of the campaign volunteers staffing the event will be less than twenty-five years old. This fact suggests that Barack Obama has already brought about some of the open-ended change he has now...