A friend recently confessed that many of his most intense emotional experiences have occurred while watching football — the European kind, to be clear. I am not a sports fanatic by any standard, and I doubt sporting events could ever provoke within me a comparable degree of passion. Yet I know my friend’s sport-induced hyper-emotions … Read more
Two weeks ago, European ministers approved a €100 billion ($126 billion) financial injection to resuscitate failing Spanish banks. With a 24.4 percent unemployment rate, the country was idle, restless, and agitated: a lethal combination that spells either adolescence or bailout. 100 billion euros later, the storm has cleared and the only progress Spain has made … Read more
Post-electoral bliss on Alexandria’s Corniche. Despite growing up to witness the turn of a millennium, history’s single-bloodiest attack on American soil, and the election of the first black president, it took me nearly twenty years and oceans away from home to truly take part in my first collective moment of baited breath—countdown, crowded room, grainy … Read more
Despite growing up to witness the turn of a millennium, history’s single-bloodiest attack on American soil, and the election of the first black president, it took me nearly twenty years and oceans away from home to truly take part in my first collective moment of baited breath—countdown, crowded room, grainy television and all. Having arrived … Read more
Part II of an on-the-ground series following the Rio+20 Earth Summit, 13-22 June in Rio de Janeiro. A mountain range, a rainforest, hours on a bus, and official pre-accreditation requirements separate Riocentro, the gigantic Rio+20 conference center, from the parallel People’s Summit in in central Rio de Janeiro: an apt allegory for the lack of … Read more
The Illusion International adoptions have an illustrious façade, conjuring images of couples saving a hungry, orphaned child and living happily ever. While imagining international adoptions as a corrupt business is abhorrent, connections to child trafficking have recently arisen. Accordingly, the State Department reports that though Americans adopted 22,991 international children in 2004, the implementation of … Read more
Part I of an on-the-ground series of columns following the Rio+20 Earth Summit, 13-22 June in Rio de Janeiro. Twenty years after the first UN Earth Summit of 1992, fifty to a hundred thousand stakeholders and leaders of the world have gathered in Rio for the Rio+20 Earth Summit. The document under negotiation is titled, … Read more
Part I of an on-the-ground series of columns following the Rio+20 Earth Summit, 13-22 June in Rio de Janeiro. Twenty years after the first UN Earth Summit of 1992, fifty to a hundred thousand stakeholders and leaders of the world have gathered in Rio for the Rio+20 Earth Summit. The document under negotiation is titled, … Read more
In light of the announcement that China plans to make its first manned space docking in late June, what does this mean for the United States on the international stage of space flight and exploration? The launch of the Sputnik by the Soviet Union in 1957 during the height of the Cold War sent shockwaves … Read more
Some people, such as our Jacob Drucker, criticize big deficits as “irresponsible.” Others criticize the critics for falling into “The Fairness Trap”: blinded by their attempts at being moral, they fail to see we need to spend a lot of money now in order to stimulate the economy and promote long-term growth. This might seem to be … Read more