Just after ascending to the head of the nation’s largest school system amid a leadership crisis, Mr. Walcott worked to improve the system with school visits and contact with unions.
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When President Obama asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates to stay at his post, Gates made clear he would do so out of a sense of public duty, not an affinity for Washington D.C.
The satirist has successfully petitioned the Federal Election Commission to create a Super Political Action Committee, allowing him to spend unlimited funds to influence political elections.
Artist and recluse Terrence Malick is this year’s winner of the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. But it has been left to Brad Pitt to explain the film director’s unique working style.
My friend Tom Wayne, co-owner of Prospero’s Books in Kansas City, recently mentioned that he had come across the phrase “old school” in Charles Dickens’s Bleak House, written and published […]
Right now, we are in an unprecedented situation where three of our nuclear sites are simultaneously in danger of floods and fire. So far, there is no immediate concern for […]
As the August 2 deadline approaches, Congress continues to fight over whether and under what conditions to raise the federal debt ceiling. Both Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s have warned […]
Now the stuff of history books, the iconic photographs of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States were once front-page news: snarling dogs, baton-wielding police, high-pressure fire hoses, and […]
While we consider the Internet to be fundamental to the flowering of democracy abroad, what about here in America? The Founding Fathers could never have imagined an Internet “Kill Switch” bill passing through the Congress, or the government-mandated seizure of domain names, or the decision of the government to selectively shut down certain parts of the Internet. They also could never have imagined Wiki-Leaks or Anonymous or LulzSec, and the limits to what type of information governments should have to divulge.
How does someone decide whether or not to offer a bribe? While there is a general consensus that bribery is not exactly the most moral act in the world, the […]
Self-control: we could all use more of it. Even those of us who are best at exercising self-control on a daily basis have so-called hot triggers, the special circumstances that would make us, too, lose our cool and start to behave less than rationally.
We won’t be able to prevent the next major Flood, Earthquake or Tsunami. Kevin Steinberg of the World Economic Forum’s Risk Response Network says we will need to be really good at coordinating the response.
Our memories affect our choices. It makes a whole lot of sense: we decide based on what we know. And if we don’t have any experience with a particular decision, […]
A book, any book, is for us a sacred object. Cervantes, who probably did not listen to everything that everyone said, read even “the torn scraps of paper in the […]
Late last week Frank Cilluffo and Clint Watts released a policy brief from George Washington University’s Homeland Security Policy Institute entitled “Yemen and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: Exploiting a […]
How do you reconcile your desire to honor your own values without forcing the people you want to help into more dangerous conduct? Former New York Times columnist Randy Cohen tackles this ethical query.
Brief post today after a few longer ones … but first, A reminder: Tomorrow (Friday July 1) is the deadline to submit your questions for Dr. Clive Oppenheimer. Take this opportunity […]
According to this expert, that president’s big advantage is that he’s not attracted primary opposition in his bid for re-election. The left may be dissatisfied with him for not showiing […]
The idea of collecting solar energy in space and beaming it to Earth has been around for at least 70 years. English researchers now hope that it will become a reality within a few years.
Equipping robots with language and learning capabilities could take some of the heat off human handlers, enabling the robots to navigate tough tasks in small groups.
A computer chip marinated in neurons and stem cells creates super bursts of activity that could one day stimulate quiet areas to reboot after a stroke or other brain damage.
A USB charger for lithium-ion batteries has been developed with Uganda in mind so that locals can become one-stop electricity providers, but you can use it on your devices, too.
In an effort to woo business users, Cisco has redesigned the Android operating system to make a tablet that also works as a desktop computer, along with sophisticated voice software.
I.B.M. has solved two related problems with phase-change memory and now says the next-generation data-storage technology will be ready for use in 2016 in servers.
If the Eighties was the decade of greed, then the Seventies was the decade of Satan. Some would argue that Satan is always with us (you know who I’m talking […]
I had a conversation with Scott Meech at Edubloggercon this year in which we discussed the fine line between ‘naming the problem so we can solve it’ and ‘shaming and […]
The NASA Earth Observatory has been doing an excellent job of monitoring the eruption at Eritrea’s Nabro using all their eyes in the sky. The latest image, taken from the […]
Three significant events are going to take place in America in the next 18 months. We will increase our nation’s debt ceiling, despite all the political showboating. We will not […]
Asteroid 2011 MD reached its closest point to Earth when it crept within 7,500 miles of the planet’s surface—closer than some satellites—before whipping away again like a slingshot.
A new study by Google projects that aggressive investment in clean energy technologies would add $150 billion in additional economic output and create 1.1. million new jobs by 2030.