New York City has been largely spared the worst of the recent real estate collapse, which isn't entirely a good thing. Family-sized apartments in Manhattan are still selling for many millions of dollars, and only the insanely wealthy can buy homes here anymore. My neighborhood is now attracting a growing...

Back in the 1980s, a rap song decrying apartheid in South Africa asked, plainly, "why are we always on the wrong side?" It's a simple enough question, but (in light of recent foreign policy disasters) one that's worth asking again.

Is it possible that from the beginning of our...

As the Republican candidates fall all over themselves to see who can be the most hostile toward immigrants, I want to express a New Year's appreciation to those newcomers who have managed to slip across our borders to make our country a better place.

My warm feelings toward our...

My New York City neighborhood is under attack, and not by Al Qaeda. The invaders are corporate chain stores, spreading like a disease through our once healthy community.

Dozens of small independent businesses along Broadway, the main shopping street in upper Manhattan, are shutting down, their rents having been...

Just after midnight on August 23, 1927, two Italian immigrant radicals were killed in the electric chair in Boston. The execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti sent shock waves throughout the world, and millions watched in horror as their seven-year legal nightmare came to a close. As we mark...

The American revolution -- in which a bunch of aggrieved farmers were able to rise up and defeat the most powerful nation and its armies -- was a pretty impressive achievement. But as with so many revolutions, the post-revolutionary regime eventually came to look an awful lot like the one...

Back in the early Clinton era, some waggish Republican created a political button that read "It's Socialism, Stupid," mocking the notice about the economy that famously hung in Clinton's campaign office. I wasn't clear which part of President Clinton's business-friendly agenda constituted socialism, but I was delighted to buy the...