A few weeks ago, Jon Stewart once again did what the people who are actually paid to do it often don't. In his interview with that hired flunky of the financiers, Jim Cramer of Mad Money, Stewart raked the financial networks for their shameless boosterism of easy money before...

What is freedom?

In the context of the ongoing economic crisis, this word has acquired a morbid new meaning. Some of us have been freed from the confines of our homes to live outdoors in tents. Many of us--nearly 700,000 in March alone--have been freed from the chains of our...

Nationalize the banks!

No, this is not the rallying cry of a new populist or socialist movement in the U.S. It is now the slogan of some Nobel prize-winning economists and respectable financiers. Even Alan Greenspan, anointed the "high priest of laissez-faire capitalism" by the Financial Times, has conceded the...

Has there ever been an Inauguration Day that has generated this level of excitement? Not in my lifetime. Here in the New England "happy valley," as we locals refer to it, people are planning to watch the ceremony en masse. Nearly a thousand people will gather to watch it on...

In the flurry of news about cabinet appointments by President-elect Obama, we have yet to hear about the most important one.

When will Obama appoint a Secretary of the People?

We have elected the next president. Now we desperately need him to name someone whose sole purpose is to defend...

The election on November 4, 2008 has brought us full circle from the events of September 11, 2001.

People all over the world mourned the destruction of the twin towers in New York City because this city is the universal city, a living experiment in coexistence. Likewise, people everywhere...

Just how catastrophic is the ongoing financial crisis? In seeking to describe its seriousness, commentators have made repeated analogies to violent natural events, calling it a "financial Katrina," a tsunami, an earthquake.

Indeed these analogies are apt, and not only because of the apparent intensity of this crisis. Much as...

How much time have you spent reading the Huffington Post or other political blogs today? More generally, how much time do you spend in a typical day or week informing yourself or thinking about politics?

In this election season it's especially relevant to consider the levels of political participation...