In his historic speech to Ghana's parliament today, President Barack Obama put democracy and good governance at the front and center of Africa's future and America's hope for it. That is just where it needs to be. Obama could not have been more eloquent or forthright in identifying bad governance...
Stephen Schlesinger | Posted July 11, 2009 | Politics
President Obama gave a speech last week in Moscow that conjures up memories of our greatest foreign policy presidents, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and John Kennedy. Two lines from Obama's address directly echo the themes and concerns of these three 20th century Democratic leaders.
First Obama stated: "Any...
Scott Atran | Posted July 11, 2009 | Politics
Jake Whitney | Posted July 11, 2009 | World
The list of corrupt African leaders in modern history is a long one.
Idi Amin of Uganda, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Frederick Chiluba of Zambia, Sani Abacha of Nigeria -- to name just a few -- pilfered their countries and/or brutalized their people to...
Tara Stiles | Posted July 11, 2009 | Living
"What's for dinner?" A lot of us ask that question right before popping our head in the fridge to see what the options are. If nothing edible is found in the house, three options with rather high probability of being significantly less healthy than the home-cooked-meal come to the table....
Andy Worthington | Posted July 11, 2009 | Politics
On Wednesday, I reported how Retired Rear Admiral John D. Hutson, the former Judge Advocate General of the US Navy from 1997 to 2000, had delivered compelling testimony to a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on "legal issues regarding military commissions and the trial of detainees for violations...
Tom Gregory | Posted July 11, 2009 | Entertainment
Michael Jackson's life has always been a contradiction of outlandish oddity and pinpoint perfection. Now in death, with the unknown location of his body, the enigma continues. It's Hollywood's real life "Where's Waldo," but unless the family is into inflicting undue pain on itself, I am almost certain he is...
John R. Price | Posted July 10, 2009 | Politics
President Obama's health care initiative isn't dead yet. It's not even on life support. It is, however, in grave danger as long as either the approval or rejection of legislation in Congress rests in the domain of political ideologues and their media lapdogs.
Americans want meaningful changes in the...
Dan Glickman | Posted July 10, 2009 | World
The new pledge to commit $20 billion to global agricultural development, announced at this week's G-8 summit, has the potential to dramatically improve the livelihoods of more than 700 million of the world's poor living in rural areas. If realized, this would be the most significant investment in the developing...
James Zogby | Posted July 10, 2009 | Politics
In 1991, as part of its overall approach to post-Gulf War peace-making, the Administration of George H. W. Bush secured an Arab agreement to suspend their secondary boycott against companies doing business with Israel, in return for an Israeli commitment to freeze settlements.
Three years later,...
Mona Gable | Posted July 10, 2009 | Politics
I'd like to thank Nancy Pelosi for nixing the resolution to honor Michael Jackson. It's not like Congress doesn't have anything to do. (Health care, anyone?) But it was a spectacularly bad idea from the start. And now with revelations about the late singer's drug problems, the coroner's office subpoenaing...
Paul Slansky | Posted July 10, 2009 | Comedy
Jackson, Michael
• brainlessness of
• columnists Bob Herbert and Gail Collins weigh in on
• crowd at Staples Center memorial service for is astonished by resurrection of ... oh, never mind, that was just that insufferable...
Jeremy Abelson | Posted July 10, 2009 | Media
I sat down with Alex Bogusky, the Golden Boy of Advertising, to get a sense of what he plans to do with the media industry.
The world of media is changing quickly--faster than many of us can comprehend. Most people have come to understand that how and where the public...
Susanne Freidberg | Posted July 10, 2009 | Green
The new documentary "Food, Inc." is the latest exposé of corporate food that aims to get us mad, disgusted, and running for the farmers' market. Even viewers who already knew about the sorry state of our food supply will likely wish they'd skipped the popcorn. But the filmmakers don't want...
Deirdre Imus | Posted July 10, 2009 | Living
It's lunchtime at your child's school. Do you know what's on the menu?
You may have heard the expression, "there is no such thing as junk food...there is just junk." But are you aware just how much "junk" is being sold at school?
Over the past 20 years, at...
Kerry Washington | Posted July 10, 2009 | Living
Recently, at the 2009 National Conference on Volunteering & Service, Arianna and I both addressed the amazing crowd of 4,500 people who assembled to share, learn and celebrate the volunteering spirit that is growing in our country.
The theme of this year's conference,"Civic. Energy. Generation," speaks to a new...
Nan Aron | Posted July 10, 2009 | Politics
The 2008-2009 term was certainly a busy one for the Supreme Court. It decided 79 cases, 23 of which, according to SCOTUSblog, were split 5-4. Of those 5-4 decisions, 16 were divided along ideological lines. A newly-available Alliance for Justice analysis of the term reveals that "the most...
Doug Kendall | Posted July 10, 2009 | Politics
Supreme Court confirmation hearings are mainly about the back and forth between Senators and the nominee. That's the constitutionally-mandated "advice and consent" dance: Senators get to ask long and often muddled questions and nominees get to give carefully crafted answers that do not reveal how they would rule in any...
Naomi Wolf | Posted July 10, 2009 | World
SOUTHAMPTON, ENGLAND - Once the crowds were in the streets in Tehran, one could, if one knew the script, begin the countdown: if today there are mass protests, tomorrow there will be threats of retaliation in the name of "national security." By day three, we see journalists imprisoned and media...
Michael Shaw | Posted July 10, 2009 | Media
Call it further signs of the media swoon....
Reuters distributes this shot which, from the way everyone is caught in the moment, seems to capture Obama ogling, or at least gamely distracted by this junior G-8 delegate (set up by the
Long before $150,000-gate, Sarah Palin seemed to...
The Obamas dropped by the Vatican on Friday, with daughters...
Yesterday evening, Greg Sargent reported on The Plum Line that one of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's key reasons...
I never actually heard the words made famous by a certain man on a certain TV show. Instead I got a lot...
Jim Hansen is director of the NASA Goddard Institute for...
Don't write off Saint Sarah all you political pundits,...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The former fiance of Gov. Sarah Palin's...
Hermione herself, Emma Watson, charmed David Letterman and...
Think Progress flags David Brooks telling...
While we of course do not claim to know anyone's thoughts, we nominate these...
The Daily Show's John Oliver is unhappy with mainstream journalism, and even drearier...
For this week's installment of their "Lunch with the FT" feature the...
Al Franken's been anointed as Minnesota's junior senator, but how did the...
SYDNEY — Residents of a rural Australian town hoping to protect the earth and their wallets...
"What's for dinner?" A lot of us ask that question right...
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Larry Diamond | Posted July 11, 2009 | World