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When it comes to issues involving Israel, politicians in Washington can become quite hysterical, making the dumbest remarks or doing the most illogical things. Evidence of such bizarre behavior abounds, and this week provided several examples.
Taking top prize would be newly-elected Republican Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois. Kirk wants the

I know a woman struggling with having an affair. Not the actual “having”, but the idea of it. She ruminates about the man in question day and night. Should she, shouldn’t

Democrats should take a page out of the Republican playbook: Fashion their own debt-ceiling bill in collaboration with the White House, pass it in the Senate under reconciliation, and then put the House under enormous pressure as the drop-dead date approaches.
The strategic problem with the debt-ceiling ‘debate’ is that there are too many groups of actors to focus the issue, the solution, and the blame if it does not result in a successful conclusion. Today, there is the White House, House Republicans, House Democrats, Senate Democrats, Senate Republicans and, among the Republicans, the Tea Partiers. That is 5-6 different buckets and perspectives that get constantly reported and participate in the jabberfest.
Six needs to be reduced to 2. At that point, there would be one group with a passed bill that can be signed and become law; the other is the

The blogosphere needs another post like the ozone needs another hole. Yet, here I am. I read all the things that you read, I can commiserate on the poor health of our ecosystems, nation, politicians, cities and schools. Don’t even get me started on our ridiculous “illness care”

“It takes courage for people to listen to their own goodness and act on it.”
– Pablo Casals
Do you ever lose sight of your own goodness? Were you ever encouraged when growing up to focus more on your faults and weaknesses, and less on your strengths and qualities? The sounds of criticism can become a habit that we adopt for ourselves and in time, they grow deafening. Literally.
The words “learn” and “heart” both have ears in them. Loving and learning go well together and thrive in lifetimes rich with curiosity and wonder — at every age. Rather like breathing in and breathing out, there are times for action, and times to listen, to receive further guidance and direction, to be restored.
I remind myself from time to time to be aware of God’s gentle hand, guiding me in the spaces between the

Friday night rush hour included many curious Angelenos inching their way to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Los Angeles Music Center to experience the acclaimed Ballet Nacional de Cuba. The legendary Cuban Prima Ballerina Assoluta Alicia Alonso choreographed the lively rendition of Don Quixote.
The hard work of the performers and the exuberant reaction by the audience illustrated a compelling argument for opening travel between USA and Cuba. The audience participated as bit players in the political drama that has separated Cuban families for more than 50

In his speech that became known as “The Spirit of Liberty,” delivered in New York City’s Central Library, in the midst of World War II, the preeminent judge and judicial philosopher, Learned Hand, asked, “What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it.” (As quoted in Time magazine, July 4, 2011)
There is a great deal of talk these days about the Constitution, about liberty and American values. In a cover story this week in Time, editor Richard Stengel asks if the Constitution still

When I moved to San Francisco decades ago, I was invited to any number of July 4th gatherings. They all had two things in common.
First, they were freezing. What was with this fog?
Second, at someone’s suggestion – I think mine, but cannot claim authorship for sure – we started reading the Declaration of Independence out

Last year on Independence Day we launched an intense focus on indie presses, and continued that attention throughout the year (see for example here, here, and here). This year again we bring you some of the most exciting established and emerging voices, both in the realm of literature and cultural/political criticism. You will find, underneath the slides, substantive discussions of the book, the author, and the press.
Our Independence Day feature last year focused on indie literary presses, and picked up university presses for later

An important debate flared this week — one in which sides were chosen, positions staked out, and invective hurled. I will let that sentence stand in order to illustrate my position on this important issue of the day: Keep the “Oxford” comma!
Ahem. So there.
What else has been going on this week? Well, two faces disappeared from the nation’s television screens this week — Glenn Beck and Mark Halperin. Can’t say that I’ll miss either one of them,

What if I told you that I had a product that would make neighborhoods safer, and still hold violators accountable for their criminal acts? What if I told you, that while there were a few bugs to work out, I could deliver on the product’s promises?
You would probably be convinced that what I was selling you was something valuable, and want to invest.
But what if I came to you thirty-five years later and told you that I really couldn’t prove the product worked. And at best, the outcomes were equivocal and contradictory. That where the investment was used most, neighborhoods were less safe. And where the product was rarely or never used, neighborhoods seemed to be safer than others.
What if I said, Oh, by the way, we’re not doing such a good job of matching the product with the right people? In fact, we’ve had 138 failures, but it’s too late to issue a

With about a month to go before the U.S. government begins defaulting on its debt, negotiations over raising the national debt ceiling have reached a critical juncture. But instead of working with President Obama to craft a solution to the nation’s fiscal problems, congressional Republicans have chosen to back out of the talks. Their reason? The President wants to end tax breaks for energy companies and owners of corporate jets.
You read that

A petition calling on the Hong Kong government to drop “gay cure” therapist Hong Kwai-wah — who claims he can “cure” LGBT people through cold showers, prayer, and abstinence — has reached more than 14,500 signatures in the last 48 hours, signaling momentum for the campaign started on Change.org by gay rights advocates Dan Choi and Truth Wins Out.
The petition has taken off on Change.org following news that Hong Kong’s Social Welfare Department recently held a workshop for its staff led by Hong Kwai-wah. Hong Kong’s endorsement of discredited “ex-gay therapy” and psychologist Hong Kwai-wah prompted Choi — a West Point graduate, combat veteran, and a leading voice in the campaign to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” — to work with Truth Wins Out to ask Hong Kong to end its sponsorship of “ex-gay therapy” and its promoters.
“It is shocking that Hong Kong would risk its reputation as an international business and cultural center by hiring a therapist with such disturbing views,” said Choi. “Hong Kongshould move decisively to restore its honor and dignity by removing Hong Kwai-wah. The world is watching and taking note of this embarrassing travesty.”
The effort to infiltrate Hong Kong’s government and promote anti-gay ideology has been spearheaded by Canada-based Exodus Global Alliance and United States-based Exodus

Forbes, which regularly publishes biased, misleading, and distorted opinion pieces on climate issues, has just published a remarkable one by Patrick Michaels. Michaels is well known for his regular misleading statements about climate. And while his statements are mostly worth ignoring, this one contains a particularly remarkable combination of errors and falsehoods. He accuses a variety of other people (including Justin Gillis of the New York Times) of misrepresenting data on food production and climate risks while simultaneously doing exactly that.
In this case, his misstatements are easily checked (though not, apparently, by Forbes fact-checkers) by actually looking up the real data on world food

For the last two decades, no state wielded more political influence per capita in the nation’s capital than North Dakota, thanks to the three veteran Democrats who made up its entire congressional delegation.
With a smaller population than all but Vermont and Wyoming, the Peace Garden State’s more than 670,000 residents could count on their two senators and lone House member to capitalize on nearly three quarters of a century of combined seniority to look out for their interests in Washington.
With Sen. Kent Conrad serving as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee and a member of the Finance Committee; Sen. Byron Dorgan as chairman of the agenda-setting Senate Democratic Policy Committee and the Indian Affairs Committee, and a member of the Appropriations Committee’s Agriculture subcommittee; and Rep. Earl Pomeroy as a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee, the powerful trio made sure their state got a disproportionate share of federal

This week marks a milestone of misery for millions of Sudanese citizens. It is the anniversary of the military coup that brought Field Marshall Omar Bashir to power in Sudan in 1989. Since then Bashir has earned international notoriety for his sustained campaign to cleanse his nation of people who do not agree with him. This includes seven years of genocide against the citizens in Darfur, for which he was been indicted by the International Criminal Court.
Sudan is a joyless place for many of its citizens, marginalized by the mainly Arab elite along the Nile who control the oil

The fight for the women’s vote ramped up this week when Michele Bachmann officially declared her run for the presidency. The Tea Party founder is pro-family, anti-government, and has proclaimed herself the champion of women everywhere. We beg to differ.
She’s just one of the guys, she told Daily Beast writer Kirsten Powers:
I’m a woman comfortable in her own skin. I grew up with three

The California Master Plan was born in Sacramento in the spring of 1960, the loving creation of Governor Pat Brown and University of California President Clark Kerr. The Plan lived a full and vibrant life, passing quietly in its sleep on June 30, in a Shakespearean twist of tragedy, dying from a wound inflicted by the signature of its creator’s son, Governor Jerry Brown and the passage of the California State Budget.
In more than a half century of a full life, the Master Plan saw the great expansion of access to higher education for multiple generations of Californians. Serving as a model of higher education internationally, the Master Plan attracted industry, academic talent and students from around the

People who consider themselves nice moan, “Why do people use me?” And groan, “Why me?” And whine, “I’ll never get what I want because_____.” Fill in that blank with, “because I allow myself to be a victim.” But this isn’t nice! Or satisfying.
Victims blame other people for being unhappy. People pleasers who call themselves nice usually see themselves as victims of people who take advantage of them. They suffer like it’s their penance and complain about those who did them

On June 26, 2011, Lawrence v. Texas — the 2003 Supreme Court victory litigated by Lambda Legal that struck down sodomy laws — will turn eight. As with most eight-year-olds, we have already seen promising glimpses of what Lawrence is capable of doing, but we have yet to witness its full potential, once it reaches maturity.
The incident that led to Lawrence occurred in Houston,

July 4, 1776 is known as American Independence Day, the day that commemorates the adoption of America’s Declaration of Independence. It is the day on which 13 colonies from Maine to Georgia, (which today consist of Maine, Georgia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island) overcame many obstacles and finally declared their freedom from the Kingdom of Great Britain.
On this most beloved of national holidays, wherever you happen to be, you will see patriots participating in picnics, arts and crafts events, barbecues, carnivals, fireworks, parades, sporting events and many other public and private events as they celebrate the significance of this important day in the history of the United States.
While some argue that July 4 is not in fact the actual day that the Declaration of Independence was signed, no one denies the bigger significance — 13 states declared themselves

This week’s Animal Oddity is all about the consequences of sex. In this case, turtle sex.
The story starts at New York’s JFK Airport. Wednesday morning airport officials had to shut down a runway when a pilot reported large numbers of the shelled reptiles crawling about (to which I say good for him, since it would have been easier to just run them over).
The turtles were diamondback terrapins, one of the most beautiful North American turtles with their pale, speckled

I went to buy a multi-vitamin for my daughter this week and discovered it was virtually impossible to find out where the ingredients were actually made. Labels said soothingly that the vitamins were “Marketed by…” or “Distributed by…” a “natural” or “health” or “natural health” sounding company with an office address in the U.S.
It turns out that many vitamins — including 80 percent of Vitamin C sold in the U.S. — are now imported from

Poetry magazine has had a major influence on American poetry for a long time now. Founded by Harriet Monroe in 1912, it discovered or furthered the careers of many of the great American poets of the last century, including T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, Langston Hughes, James Merrill and Gwendolyn Brooks.
And after all these years, Poetry is still perhaps the most sought after poetry publication in the