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Humor fosters community and builds character, two virtues that educational reformers neglect. 

So, here’s the question for today: How should we respond when people we admire make serious missteps? Just so there’s no confusion, I want to say right up front that […]

Here’s my personal list of things that are over-rated.  And, of under-rated things that aren’t supposed to make me happy, but do. What’s on your list? SURPRISE BIRTHDAY PARTIES. I […]

An article published in The Telegraph over a month ago remains on The Telegraph website with a headline that is so spectacularly incorrect that the BBC has reported that the article […]

By the time he put the finishing touches on the Rite of Spring in November of 1912 in the Châtelard Hotel in Clarens, Switzerland, Stravinsky had spent three years studying Russian pagan […]

As I begin to come back to earth after Michelle Obama’s spectacular speech at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday night, what strikes me most about Day One in Charlotte […]

As shown by this map, the next presidential election will not be decided by 50 states, but by just 11 – the so-called ‘swing states’, that could still go either way. 

     Dear England,       The British press has had its knickers in a twist over Americans appropriating Britishisms for some time, whingeing about it in The Guardian, The Telegraph, The […]

I’ve been thinking in speculative directions lately, and nothing is more speculative than the question of whether we’ll one day be able to extend the human lifespan. The notion of […]

Researchers at the University of Glasgow have used 3D printers to synthesize chemical compounds commonly used in medicines, enabling a future of on-demand health care. 

The FAA is forming a panel to investigate the possible future use of tablets and smart phones throughout flights.

Years ago, when I was a young reporter working for a New England newspaper, I was told, more than once, that our city editor had “the personality of a door […]

This month, Wrangler’s “revolutionary” line of jeans infused with skin-soothing extracts will be available on the online shopping site ASOS. (Sorry guys, this one’s just for the ladies. For now.)

It’s no secret that future disruptive demographic changes will have profound implications for the relationship between employers and employees. But what’s less well known is that some of those demographic […]

So I’m not a big fan of convention speeches.  I certainly don’t think they make a permanent difference in the campaign.  Any “bump” is temporary.  Remember, after all, that the […]

A report out from the EPA this week says that only one in five rivers and streams are in good condition, and just over half are in poor condition.

For all the ugliness of Nazism in thought and deed, it’s striking to consider just how much they contemplated the arts. From the failed painter Adolf Hitler to the failed […]

This week, we witnessed another step in the Republican party’s long drawn-out national suicide: “I’ve struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life […]

The Jokers to the Right in my title don’t require further introduction.  They’re the social conservatives who belittle rape in their anti-abortion zealotry, believe that the control and suppression of […]

A Dutch woman has received a jaw implant created layer by layer from a 3D printer. The maker of the machine says human organs could one day be printed using organic ‘ink’.

The United States has been the world’s “guardian of the state system, and of open expression and free trade.” Should the United States cease to be this “guardian,” it would cause a turn of events that would lead to empires.

I was working on an essay not long ago and came across a comment from Twilight author Stephenie Meyer that in her novels she wanted to write about “love, not […]

The same mindset that drives a person to have it all eventually stops them from having what they really want. 

Shakespeare’s Caius Martius Coriolanus isn’t really suited to politics, but his family and friends urge him on, and so he makes a game effort at putting up with the smelly […]

Over the last decade, Europe has a seen a rise in the use of so-called ‘Baby Boxes’. As The Telegraph reports: “Often found in the walls of hospitals the boxes […]

Sure he is, according to Walter Russell Mead.  Mead’s Meadea, of course, is one of the most savvy and erudite blogs around. One reason, it appears, that Mead is voting […]

A company’s new app represents a bold effort to keep customers’ attention on their TVs while also making a statement about the future of digital media interaction.

The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, And ceas’d […]

Many think Justice Anthony Kennedy will cast the decisive vote ending affirmative action as we know it.

So Romney is taking a big and deserved hit for his stupid and arrogant remark that 47% of Americans won’t vote for him because they don’t pay income taxes and, […]