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Slate’s resident advice columnist recently printed a letter from an adult child with a very unusual problem: Dear Prudence, My mother died a decade ago; neither she nor my father […]
“Do you know what the common point between Facebook, Google, Blue Jeans and Twist music is?” was the question Charles Thou, co-founder and CEO of Studyka asked Jason Calacanis at […]
For the past few weeks I have been going back and forth with Frank Cilluffo and Clint Watts over their paper on what to do in Yemen. (Their original post […]
Maybe Americans have gotten smarter. Maybe we have started to realize, despite the disembodied economic statistics delivered by the serious and profound voices that ooze out of our TV’s every […]
Pay attention to what isn’t there, not just what is. Absence is just as important and just as telling as presence.
After touching down early Thursday morning, the Atlantis shuttle is now officially a museum piece. It will be retired at the Kennedy Space Center Museum in Cape Canaveral, Florida. “Job […]
We’ve reached a unique paradox in American political culture today: Both liberals and conservatives view the mainstream media as biased, yet tend to believe that their own ideologically-like minded outlets […]
My brother Erik Nisbet, a professor at The Ohio State University, has a study out that casts important new light on how Americans reacted to the news of the death […]
In a previous post, we asked you who you want to see featured on video at Big Think. The response was overwhelming to say the least. From UAW President Bob […]
Long after the United States and the Soviet Union put their Cold War space race to bed, another cosmic competition is heating up. This one is taking place in the private sector.
Earlier this week I wrote a series of pieces (below, at Scientific American,Los Angeles Times) suggesting that society regulate (with lots of open and democratic discussion) the behavior of those […]
In a recently published book chapter, my colleague Lauren Feldman and I review the major areas of research on how media and campaigns influence public judgments and knowledge. We also […]
By 2012, world markets will be demanding 90 million barrels of oil a day. The world currently produces 88 million. Our dependence on OPEC oil and non-renewable energy sources is an increasingly bad idea.
A special meeting of the United Nations security council is due to consider whether to expand its mission to keep the peace in an era of climate change with a new force of ‘green helmets’.
His name was Dandon and he was a strange man even for 1812 Berlin. By day, he was a Professor of Languages at the University. He was competent and respected […]
The future of global innovation is the Brazilian favela, the Mumbai slum and the Nairobi shanty-town. At a time when countries across the world, from Latin America to Africa to […]
The vandalizing of Nicolas Poussin’s paintings The Adoration of the Golden Calf and Adoration of the Shepherds at the National Gallery of Art in London just this past weekend sent […]
Who’s living the American Dream? A recent survey offers some interesting clues.
So Borders is gone for good, its last four hundred stores scheduled to vanish within weeks. As mourners rush to the liquidation sales, it’s worth pausing to ask: what the […]
At PRI’s Marketplace yesterday, Mitchell Hartman took a look at Facebook’s opening of a new server center in rural Oregon. The story raised the question: How many jobs do social […]
Step One: Buy a truckload of 55 gallon drums of red, white and blue paint from a “job creator/big-time political donor” who has several manufacturing plants located in China. Step […]
When I lived in Portland, Oregon, I spent many pleasant years renovating old houses. It’s a fine way for a semi-employed writer to remain semi-employed. One of the simple joys […]
1. So my post on Brooks and death got (for me) big ratings and a lot of fine criticisms–both here on BIG THINK and elsewhere. 2. I pretty much agree […]
One of the best parts of my job at the Sidney Hillman Foundation is working on the monthly Sidney Awards for excellence in journalism. I was very excited to learn […]
The communal aspect of public education is under attack by advocates of public school privatization promoting “parental choice.”
Mr. President, you could use a few storytelling classes. As it stands now, you are an above average reciter of facts, when you aren’t tired, but you seem to lack […]
When I divorced many years ago, I quickly tired of friends’ inquires as to how I was coping with all the household chores. The only difference to my workload post-marriage […]
For centuries, the best of radical journalists, campaigners and trades unionists have railed against the British Establishment. They have largely had good cause to do so. The apex of the […]
Feminist art has always dealt with a fundamental problem—male art. Frida had her Diego, Krasner had her Pollock, and on and on. What exactly is the best relationship between art […]
At the journal Public Understanding of Science, a forthcoming study provides one of the first cross-national comparisons of how energy policy has been covered and debated in news coverage [abstract]. […]