As the year and the decade draw to a close, I find myself in a strangely optimistic mood. True, there are many reasons for pessimism -- war, global warming, a so-so health care bill, a potentially nuclear Iran, huge unemployment, etc. But over the past week, I have found reasons...

Until I was a junior in high school, I had never heard of the University of Chicago. This was despite the fact that the first human initiated nuclear detonation occurred there and that more Nobel Laureates were on faculty at the school than any other university in the world. It...

With the conspicuous exception of the Marshall Plan. America has basically used the past 65 years to forgo love and make war. Depending on your political bent, you either consider this he highest form of
hypocrisy or necessity. No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, however,...

The employment situation in America is so bad that Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina refuses to quit despite the abject humiliation of staying in his job. True, he's literally unimpeachable, at least according to Representative James Harrison, who said, "We can't impeach for hypocrisy. We can't impeach for...

I was raised Jewish, but that doesn't mean that I don't know a Christmas wish list when I see one. So when the IAEA issued its rebuke to Iran, I was not surprised to hear a furious leadership act like a child caught with its hand in the cookie...

This isn't the first time that I've said it, but better living through chemistry is not only possible, it's common. I was particularly struck by this fact over Thanksgiving, when it became clear that three separate people at the table - none of them related by 'blood' - were all...

I first became aware of Glenn Beck in a sort of backhanded way. He was already well on his way to capturing the hearts of conservative America with his nationally syndicated radio show, but not yet a pillar of Fox News. At the time, I was working on a book...

This week saw what happens when an ugly little thing like empirical evidence collides with what might best be called faith-based health consumerism, which dictates that more is always better. The Federal Preventative Service Task Force, a non-partisan, non-political group founded during the Reagan administration was accused of encouraging health...

The massacre at Fort Hood has me wondering what kind of nation we really are. My inescapable conclusion is that as a nation, we're a fighter, not a lover.

Our lack of amorous disposition is evident throughout the culture wars. Abstinence education staggers on despite ample proof that it...

A year ago, it was Prop 8 that sullied my joy at the official end of the Bush era. One year later, this once proud son of the State of Maine is appalled. 52.7% of the voting electorate there voted yes to the question, "Do you want to reject the...

Conservatives exult. Liberals despair. The public option is dead. Not one week ago that all seemed perfectly true. The question is what changed between then and Harry Reid's surprising pronouncement recently. After much consideration, I have come to conclude that the answer is absolutely nothing. Rather, the Obama agenda has...

Step one: Get yourself elected to high political office.

Step two: Find yourself someone to love other than your spouse. And as long as you're at it, you might as well have sex with someone else's spouse. Why not the husband of an employee?

Step three: Get caught. It's...

Let's start with the obvious. US expenditures on health care are the highest in human history. And yet, we're not nearly as healthy as many countries that spend less. The undeniable conclusion is that we are remarkably bad at investing our wealth in a way that makes Americans healthy. That's...

Movie sequels prove that second acts are usually a terrible idea. The clever becomes dross; the dross becomes fetid, and so on and so forth, until all that's left if toxic landfill. What's true of cinema is also true of politics. If you stick around past your expiration date, then...

As a country with a rather horrific civil war in its past, its no easy to thing to bat around a concept like secession. It's filled with evil reminders of an unjust past that sought, amongst other things, to preserve slavery. And yet, sometimes the body from which a political...

We should get the hell out of Afghanistan as soon as possible. The expense of continuing this foreign adventure and the danger to US citizens of staying has simply become unacceptably high. The concept of victory is no longer meaningful or practical. The sooner we face this, the better off...

It's August, almost Labor Day. For a week, we've read little except about the death and pageantry surrounding the mourning for and burial of Ted Kennedy. You'll note that not even the right wing is going along with this. Why? Because they are all on vacation, just like their brethren...

The problem with the health care debate -- versus the attempt to actually reform a broken system -- can be traced to three simple problems. The first is greed, and I'm not talking about corporate variety. I am referring to the current "haves" who are content to hide behind libertarian...

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines scaremonger as, "one inclined to raise or excite alarms especially needlessly." It's an excellent definition, but for anyone struggling to understand it at the gut level, I'd suggest trying to visualize the face of Former Representative Dick Armey. Many people already knew this, but I didn't...

Last night, I did something that was both enjoyable and difficult: I watched Bill Moyers Journal on PBS. Mr. Moyers is not afraid to call out both the hysterical right wing and their Astroturfing zealots for the way that are using their First Amendment Rights to stamp out other voices....