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The perception is that the minds of the 22 FIFA members were already made up, either through vote trading or through friendships and contacts over many years.

So, in the wake of the boring–yet annoying–Golden Globes,  I’ve been asked what movies of last year I’d recommend that the foreign correspondents slighted.  Let me say, to begin with, […]

An oft-heard homily—”It’s the thought that counts”—is put more lyrically by the Chinese—”To walk a thousand li and present a swan feather; the gift is light but the friendship is solid.”

Scott McLeod asked a bunch of teachers, me among them, to write about what they thought teachers needed from an administrator. What are my qualifications for this task other than […]

A shortcoming of Lockean liberalism, the kind of liberty to which the Founders were primarily devoted, is its tendency to undermine the stability of the family over time.  As the nation’s […]

Most of you won’t believe this, but I’ve actually gotten several requests to say more about Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, rightly called the best book ever written on […]

So I’ve been battling a cold the last few days, and have been losing. You know- foggy, can’t think straight, haven’t had the energy to blog. So imagine, if you […]

What is intellectual property? What is privacy? These questions play out daily now, and those in a position to answer them occasionally shift their views, but the questions surrounding the […]

“Science validates the notion that people with a strong social network live longer. It’s not yet clear if the benefits apply to those who turn to the Internet for friendship.”

“Americans, plugged in and on the move, are confiding in their pets, their computers, and their spouses. What they need is to rediscover the value of friendship.”

Can social network friends be real friends when relationships are pursued and developed in such facile and costless ways? Philosopher Roger Scruton says real friendship involves risk.

When you talk about Classical music, you often begin with the three Killer B’s: Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. If you talk about American photography, you need to begin with the […]

Economic researchers are uncovering the chemical triggers in our brains that spark feelings of trust—and using their findings to better understand how markets work.

If the The Noguchi Museum’s 25th anniversary exhibition were an episode of Friends, it would be titled “The One Where Isamu Became an Artist.” On Becoming an Artist: Isamu Noguchi […]

The New Yorker chronicles the artistic development of Bob Dylan parallel to his run-ins with The Beat writers in Greenwich Village, and particularly his lasting friendship with Allen Ginsberg.

Director of the Washington office of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Haris Tarin tells of the tolerant America his late immigrant father cherished, a tolerant America that is crumbling.

Your friends likely have more friends than you do. Please don’t take that personally. As the sociologist Scott L. Feld was first to point out, this is simply a mathematical […]

There is a ‘precious’ level to this map, and a naughty one.

“Hey, Kiddo.” When she was a young girl, Berkeley Reinhold would pick up the phone and hear Andy Warhol greet her with those words. Although he was calling for her […]

Big Think interviewed an array of luminaries in a variety of fields this week, including several world leaders and giants in the arts. Bolivian President Evo Morales, in New York […]

Stuck in Despair Marsh, or marching up the Determination Hills?

“We love them, of course, but new research suggests that having children makes us unhappy — it’s just that none of us feels able to admit it.” The Independent researches a taboo issue.

It’s plain to see that I’m an optimist, sometimes more than is socially comfortable. The ease with which I dismiss the disastrous economic decline above serves as one example of that. I wrote that the recession will benefit our political system, and, before I cut this line, as having “rewarded our company for methodical execution and ruthless efficiency by removing competitors from the landscape.” I make no mention of the disastrous effects on millions of people, and the great uncertainty that grips any well-briefed mind, because it truly doesn’t stand in the foreground of my mind (despite suffering personal loss of wealth). Our species is running towards a precipice with looming dangers like economic decline, political unrest, climate crisis, and more threatening to grip us as we jump off the edge, but my optimism is stronger now than ever before. On the other side of that looming gap are extraordinary breakthroughs in healthcare, communications technology, access to space, human productivity, artistic creation and literally hundreds of fields. With the right execution and a little bit of luck we’ll all live to see these breakthroughs — and members of my generation will live to see dramatically lengthened life-spans, exploration and colonization of space, and more opportunity than ever to work for passion instead of simply working for pay. Instead of taking this space to regale you with the many personal and focused changes I intend to make in 2009, let me rather encourage you to spend time this year thinking, as I’m going to, more about what we can do in 2009 to positively affect the future our culture will face in 2020, 2050, 3000 and beyond.

Save yourself the time and effort: parents have much less influence over their children’s personality than we think, says controversial psychologist Judith Rich Harris. 

nn nn Rarely is the question asked: What if Italy had won the Second World War? The more frequently asked question is: What if Germany had won the war? Italy […]

A curious map from Alfred Russel Wallace, the father of biogeography

Amikejo was located in Neutral Moresnet, a geopolitical anomaly that managed to survive for a whole century after the Congress of Vienna.

David Brooks’s recent love letter to Christopher Hitchens called (respectfully) only glancing attention to the celebrated author’s current battle with cancer; instead, Brooks focused on how important Hitchens is to […]

A treasure map of the voyage to sobriety

Gary Bass looks at how Israel lost its alliance with France in 1967, and what that precedent might indicate for the country’s relations with the Obama Administration.