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President Obama apparently thinks the safer way to justify higher taxes on the super rich is to pitch the proposal based on its deficit-reduction potential. But if he wants to get the ball rolling for meaningful tax reform, Obama will summon his rhetorical powers to explain how the Buffett Rule could help reduce the nation's massive and destructive wealth inequality.

The America I live in is not 90% white. The America I live in does not have more hogs than people. The American I live in does not have 60% […]

While walking in Fairmount Park in 1872 with his minister father, 12-year-old Henry Ossawa Tanner saw a man painting and became curious about art. His family fed that curiosity, which […]

Do stubborn people actually win? Maybe the reason they take such an aggressive approach every time is that it works, says Steven Pinker.

The line of battle for the future of public education is clear. The first side has money, powerful political connections, and an infrastructure of nonprofit organizations with paid staff. The other side has this: the ability to become a true grassroots movement. 

You already know where you stand on Holden Caulfield. Either you found him a kindred spirit in your youth and continue to sympathize with him—less blindly, more wistfully—as you age; […]

Continuing a tradition I started last year, here’s a very personal, very subjective, “I can’t read everything, so I probably left out something, so mention it in the comments, OK?” […]

I’d be remiss if I let 2011 slip by without a tribute to Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979), who was born a century ago and who now looms larger over contemporary poetry […]

Craig Robinson, a conservative blogger who runs The Iowa Republican, didn’t mince words last week, calling Herman Cain a liar who is not willing to take responsibility for his actions. […]

“All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up,” says washed-up silent film star Norma Desmond in the final scene of Billy Wilder’s unforgettable 1950 film Sunset Boulevard. Gloria Swanson […]

Was the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki legal? Was it wise and did it make Americans safer?

His statue has stood outside the York Art Gallery for a century now, but most passersby don’t know the name of William Etty or the works that once made him […]

Most people know that Emily Dickinson was a great poet, but it takes a deep plunge into her collected poems to realize just how staggeringly great she was. Usually represented […]

What if colonisers and colonised swapped places (and climates)?

Our government will never pass the burden of proof test concerning the death of Osama bin Laden if there is a general failure to comprehend the nature of evidence. 

Here is a list of some of the health crises that weren't—crises that were either completely unfounded or that received an unwarranted amount media attention commensurate to their actual risk.

We see them every time we go to a museum, but we never really see them. Like Rodney Dangerfield, frames get no respect. Julius Lowy Frame & Restoring Company, Inc. […]

To borrow a phrase fromBilly Idol, Dijkstra presents “flesh for fantasy” first as the nightmare of Puritanism and, more hopefully, as the perhaps impossible dream of a mature, open society.

Since I’ve run out of blog ideas—and have New Year’s Eve parties to get to—today I’m just going to post some of the things that people who are more interesting […]

Aside from the almost comically anatomically incorrect shark, the aspect of John Singleton Copley’s 1778 painting Watson and the Sharkthat most catches my eye is the black seaman standing in […]

Like Satan, he is known by many names—Sinterklaas, Père Noël, Tomte—but we Americans call him Santa Claus. The long white beard, red outfit, reindeer, etc., all seem like givens to […]

“Telling the history of art without the history of gay people is like telling the history of slavery without mentioning black people,” says David C. Ward, curator of Hide/Seek: Difference […]

Because whatever becomes of the allocation of electronic rights, the death of chain stores, or (even) the recurring flirtations of this novelist or that poet with risky new forms, we […]

Yesterday, the LA Times ran a feature describing separate communication efforts by the American Geophysical Union and a small band of climate scientists-turned-activists.  The effort by AGU seeks to engage […]

In the days before the House vote to fund embryonic stem cell research, the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times ran page one stories heralding a Nature Biotech study that […]

Long-time veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas is retiring in the wake of comments she made at a recent celebration of the Jewish Heritage at the White House. When Rabbi […]

"It is a sad finale for someone who helped break down barriers for women journalists at the center of American power," so says the L.A. Times of Helen Thomas.

Two tidbits from New Zealand: nn nn – A recent survey of volcanoes in the Kermadec Arc north of New Zealand suggest that there is abundant – and recent – […]

Whether out of financial prudence or budgetary necessity, the annual summer vacation has been a “staycation” for millions of families during this recession year. Local attractions have had to do, […]

“There is certainly some strange power that has some overlook on me & directing my life,” Winslow Homer wrote in a letter to his brother late in his life. “That […]