Just before Rip Van Winkle falls into his thirty-year slumber, he encounters the ghostly spectacle of a handful of ancient Dutch colonials playing at ninepins, the thunder rolling across the […]
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Due to Friday’s historic Supreme Court ruling, this installment of Purpose, Inc. will delve into an important relationship lesson that models “the perfect ask” as told through Obama, the Bushes, […]
The successful decoding of the human genome was a phenomenal scientific achievement. For the first time in the world’s history, the entire genetic code of the human species was fully available to […]
In a previous post about debating on Twitter, I wrote that I conduct most debates these days through the Socratic method. I find this more effective than arguing by assertion, […]
Philistines are people who have something to be embarrassed about but nevertheless do not feel embarrassed. In common usage a philistine ought to feel embarrassed primarily because he lacks “culture”: […]
The NATO air attack that killed at least two dozen Pakistani soldiers at the weekend will worsen the already deep American-Pakistani rift and could spark more tit-for-tat retaliation.
What is the Big Idea? Samir N. Kapadia’s career in Washington D. C. seemed routine in comparison to the exciting jobs his friends had in India, a surging nation in […]
What is the Big Idea? Tacked on to the end of the lengthy Dodd-Frank Act, which imposed new government safeguards after the U.S. financial crisis, there is an unusual provision […]
It’s Sunday morning, and I’m writing this on the train from Washington, D.C. back to New York. I’m exhausted, washed out, and my calves are two knots of pain from […]
This lecture on “diagnostic inflation” or the over-diagnosis or mental disorder by Allen J. Frances, the chair of the DSM-IV task force, is important. Watch it. Frances lays out absolutely […]
Google’s “augmented reality” glasses are upon us, complete with stylish company codename (“Project Glass”) and Orwellian rhetorical judo: “People I have spoken with [i.e., Google employees] who have have seen Project […]
Well, this business with the NAP notwithstanding, the Reason Rally is swiftly approaching, and it still promises to be awesome. On March 24, atheists and freethinkers from all across the […]
Andrew Chen has the valley all atwitter with his most recent post: Growth Hacker is the new VP Marketing. The post is well worth reading, and Andrew adds a fantastic […]
At the Reason Rally in Washington, D.C. last month, my friend Greta Christina told me something that I, a lifelong New Yorker, never knew: Harry Houdini is buried in a […]
“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” asks the gospel of Mark. Verily, I know not. But in […]
What’s the Big Idea? Peggielene Bartels was an administrative assistant in Washington D.C. when she got a phone call informing her she’d been elected King of Otuam, the Ghanian fishing […]
Following the demise of cap and trade legislation, green group leaders acknowledged that despite spending several hundred million dollars to pass the bill, they were unable to create public demand […]
Sometime in the first half of the first millennium B.C.E. a group of Canaanites distinguished themselves from their neighbors by advocating the worship of Yahweh alone, to the exclusion of […]
This month’s buzz award was won by Google’s secretive Project Glass, a concept in development by Google X Lab that promises to replace our smartphones with augmented reality glasses. It’s […]
What’s the Big Idea? This week in Washington D.C. the United States Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments on the constitutionality of federal health care legislation. It’s a case that […]
What’s the big deal about J.P. Morgan’s $2 billion trading loss? Austan Goolsbee, an economic advisor to President Obama, said the American public should be concerned because, in his words, […]
“Why are we picking at these carcasses of creativity?” Holly Finn asks in a recent Wall Street Journal article, pointing her critical finger at the particular corpse of Damien Hirst’s […]
In a previous thread, again buried in a huge pile of comments, there was one I wanted to highlight: Now you talk of pregnancy as a real life threatening thing […]
This semester, students from a diversity of majors at American University are participating in an advanced seminar I am teaching on science and environmental communication. For the first part of the […]
My Google news alert has been flooded with stories about the Reason Rally this week, and quite a few of them come from religious organizations expressing their own viewpoints about […]
My household has split opinions on the new Melissa Harris-Perry show on MSNBC. I think it is amazing that a national news show has a black woman with braided hair […]
by Clay Shentrup The Problem My fellow voter: have you ever been afraid to vote for your favorite candidate? If so, you’re not alone. It happens to the best of […]
This article was previously published on AlterNet. For the vast majority of human history, the only form of government was the few ruling over the many. As human societies became […]
According to former White House Special Advisor Van Jones, it will require a patient mindset to get us to the place where the country can run on cleaner and more renewable forms of energy.
Politics makes us stupid. This is one of my recurring themes. This is the principal reason I refuse to be a partisan or ideological team player. People call me libertarian […]