Search Results

New businesses in Silicon Valley and Alley have tremendous power over what it will mean to be human in the coming decades. And with great power comes great responsibility. We hear often that the world is changing fast – we talk less about what we’d like it to change into.

Sometimes the urge for instant gratification makes perfect sense.

Have you ever walked past a monument, stopped to see what or whom it was for, and either still had no idea what or whom it was memorializing or had […]

I’ll be posting another actual ATNT post tomorrow. For now, I just want to indicate other posts I’ve written recently. 1. MAKING MONSTERS [link] At my friend Martin Pribble’s blog, […]

A couple years ago, the government of New York City created a program on resilience to climate change and sea level rise. Many of the steps that program laid out […]

Over 20 years ago, I got in my car and drove a short distance from Baltimore to Washington, DC to meet the person I was in love with at the […]

What’s the Big Idea? It started with furniture, Kip Tindell remembers. When the Dallas-based entrepreneur set out with his partners to launch a venture in 1978, the idea was to sell […]

The big news this week, as well it should be, was a new survey from Pew showing that America’s religious “nones” continue their demographic ascent: The number of Americans who […]

Following up on my post about the preventable death of Savita Halappanavar due to anti-choice theology, three Catholic blogs at Patheos have weighed in: “Savita’s tragic death could have been […]

Market reports sometimes use the phrase “testing the bottom.” It’s when a market flirts with a new low, below which it will not fall. The phrase also applies to the […]

John Silber just passed away. He accomplished many things…made Boston University into an internationally recognized academic institution, served as Chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Education…but he also taught an […]

I was working on an essay not long ago and came across a comment from Twilight author Stephenie Meyer that in her novels she wanted to write about “love, not […]

New York, 1964. The World’s Fair is in full gear, as 50 million people make the trek to Queens to see what the future has in store. The exposition showcases […]

The redoubtable fashion critic Simon Doonan, author of Gay Men Don’t Get Fat,observes that a unique appearance is a political liability in the United States. Mitt Romney, he observes, is “so handsome that he runs the risk of looking too “plastic…like a TV anchor.”   

            A new study regarding a high-profile risk…mercury…has two important findings; there may be an association between in-utero mercury exposure and ADHD as kids grow up, but the children of […]

What is the strongest motivation for space exploration today? According to astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, it’s the promise of economic return.   

Elizabeth Bernstein has a thoughtful and interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal about the troubling incivility, cruelty, and rudeness that many people unleash online, in Comments sections, on Twitter, […]

Bloomberg recently asked me a few questions about the evolving role and capacity of the United Nations.  With the 67th session of the UN General Assembly underway, I wanted to […]

“[I]t was here that I found a scene that did not exist elsewhere. I suppose I was like a child in a sweet shop. The California beach was like heaven,” […]

Fresh off his potential “Colbert Bump,” conceptual artist Jeff Koons took a potential PR black eye this weekend in a New York Times Magazine piece titled “I Was Jeff Koons’s […]

Paul Ekman studies “the lies that society cares about catching and generally disapproves of.” After all, we lie most often to avoid punishment for breaking a rule.    

Effectively engaging the American public on climate change—including its causes, impacts, and solutions—remains both a major research question and a communication challenge. Effective public engagement requires understanding the cognitive, affective, […]

“John Quincy Adams said that the United States should be the ‘well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all . . . , the champion and vindicator only of her own.’” 

DID YOU WATCH! Did your heart pound, your palms get sweaty, your muscles tense! Did you join the millions around the world gripped by fear and tension as Felix Baumgartner […]

From Fortune 500 companies to Presidential campaigns, it seems everyone has bought into the power of memes to move a message.  And nobody bought in earlier than Ben Lashes, the […]

Over 90% of respondents around the world said that the War on Drugs has failed — and it’s no surprise why. 

Does democracy require universal suffrage? Yes, I think so. So does the Supreme Court. Economist Bryan Caplan isn’t so sure. A few years ago Caplan identified several pernicious biases individuals […]

Modern American society is built on the twin concepts of “democracy” and “freedom.” But if we truly believe in democracy and freedom, then we have no alternative but to get rid of the archaic laws that force us to vote for only one candidate.

Data-mongering is how Americans try to explain or control someone’s actions. And yet, statistics about people in general, or about some category of people, tell you nothing certain about any one individual.

What is it about hot yoga?  While many of my friends are real fitness addicts, none compete at the level of those I know who are into Bikram Yoga.  They […]