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Posts published in “Essays”

Bolivian Democracy and the US

The prospect of socialist peasant leader Evo Morales as Bolivia's next president disturbed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Charles Shapiro. “It would not be welcome news in Washington to see the…

Apocalypse Now

This headline appeared in the London Independent in early February of 2005 following a conference at the Hadley Centre in Exeter, England, where 200 of the world’s leading scientists issued the most urgent warning to…

Paradigm Lost

Here is my all-time favorite cartoon: a man is hanging from his pickax, which is hooked, barely, over the top edge of an impossible precipice. A second man hangs on to his ankle. There is…

True Believers

The best season of the year is finally here. Baseball season. It's only a game that's being played, of course — but a game that can be very serious business to the young people who…

Tom Cahill’s Long Road

Although he wasn’t at all street-smart or jail-savvy when he was arrested for civil disobedience in the 1960s, Tom Cahill got a quick lesson in incarceration as he was led to his Texas jail cell…

Antiwar Activism: Closing The Credibility Gap

While attending an antiwar rally in Seattle on Saturday, March 19, I had profoundly mixed feelings. From an organizer's standpoint, the rally was a success: 5,000 people came out in the rain to hear speeches…

Beyond the Gender Issue, What’s The Deal At Harvard?

Some of what Harvard President Larry Summers said about scientific and mathematical aptitudes was sensible enough. And some of it was the kind of bosh you can expect from an economist, as Mr. Summers is.…

Death, Depression and Prozac

Jeff Weise, teen slayer of 10 including himself at the Redlake Indian reservation in northern Minnesota, was on Prozac, prescribed by some doc.  How did the consultation go? “Here Jeff, take these, they may help…

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