Essays
Aug 3rd 2015
The pictures are sad and grotesque. An American dentist and his guide grinning over the remains of Cecil the Lion. Our sympathies run directly to the victim of the hunt, the lion.
Aug 2nd 2015
Not long ago, school children chose what they wanted to be when they grew up, and later selected the best college they could gain admission to, spent years gaining proficiency in their fields, and joined a company that had a need for their skills. Careers lasted lifetimes.
Aug 1st 2015
"There are more net jobs in the world today than ever before, after hundreds of years of technological innovation and hundreds of years of people predicting the death of work. The logic on this topic is crystal clear.
Jul 31st 2015
From Picasso’s The Young Ladies of Avignon to Munch’s The Scream, what was it about these paintings that arrested people’s attention upon viewing them, that cemented them in the canon of art history as iconic works?
In many cases, it’s because the artist incorporated a technique, form or style t
Jul 30th 2015
Art world sophisticates often casually dismiss the market for art as irrational and arbitrary.
Jul 30th 2015
The killing of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe has brought fresh attention to an entrenched, ongoing crisis in wildlife conservation.
As unsustainable global
Jul 24th 2015
The discovery of Kepler-452b is not likely to see the public swoon with a collective r
Jul 21st 2015
O.K., I admit it: I have resumed a love affair begun more than four decades ago. The object of my affection -- and I should add, also of my wife's -- is Finland, a country where we once lived when I was researching my doctoral dissertation.
Jul 19th 2015
What would Voltaire make of his uncertain place in the collective American consciousness today?
Jul 13th 2015
Greece is in desperate trouble, but at least its survival as a nation is assured. In contrast, the UK might very well cease to exist within the next decade or so. In its place, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland could emerge as completely independent nations.
Jul 9th 2015
NEW YORK – Vidkun Quisling, Norway’s wartime fascist leader whose name has become synonymous with collaboration with evil, lived with his wife in a rather grandiose villa outside of Oslo.
Jul 7th 2015
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is this summer's campaign phenomenon. Consider the crowds he is drawing. In Madison, Wisconsin, he recently attracted a crowd of nearly 10,000 raucous, enthusiastic supporters.
Jun 29th 2015
Beginning with my book Moral Politics in 1996 (Ch. 12), I have been arguing that environmental issues are moral issues.
Jun 27th 2015
You care about literature. You might even want to get published. Maybe you’ve got the short story done. You’re working on the novel. You don’t have an agent, a big publishing house.
Jun 25th 2015
This week in a televised press conference, Republican South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley called for the removal of the Confederate Battle Flag from the South Carolina Statehouse grounds.
Jun 24th 2015
"The idea of nullification in its own way is equally odious......... It is frightening that such an idea has captured the imagination of so many Republican legislators. It is an idea that the national GOP leadership should repudiate, and soon.
Jun 23rd 2015
"I told you so" just seems so inadequate.
Jun 22nd 2015
The sex lives of older people have received a lot of attention recently.