As an historian who grew up in the Caribbean and who has been researching and traveling to Cuba since it was still a Soviet dependent, I have been asked frequently in the last few days my impression of…
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Sony’s decision to cancel the Christmas Day release of its film The Interview is drawing harsh criticism from Hollywood’s elite. George Clooney is asking everyone to stand up against the cancellation…
If you were following politics over the last few election cycles, you were most likely getting some of your information from satire. In fact, research has shown that in today’s political climate, satire…
“Normalization” – that’s been the word of the week among Cubans and Cuba watchers. Set aside for the moment whether it’s really possible for a dictatorship and a democracy to have normal relations, since…
Youth sports are viewed as a rite of passage in a child’s development. If the clichés that permeate sports broadcasts and locker room speeches are to be believed, sports participation teaches children…
The shift towards late motherhood – commonly defined as motherhood after 35 – is often presented as a story of progress and technological liberation from the biological clock. The narrative goes something…
The thousands of tax loopholes that litter the corporate tax code in the United States are frequent targets of criticism from both Democrats and Republicans. Outgoing Republican Senator Tom Coburn released…
As we officially enter winter, some of us are already looking for signs it will be over soon. Folk wisdom tells us to look to the woollys for insight into how bad the season will be.
No US president ever said what President Obama told the American people on December 17, 2014. He also spoke to the people of Cuba, the ordinary citizens who struggle to make breakfast, lunch, and dinner…
Voluntary programs are all the rage. From ratcheting up cybersecurity to fighting obesity, firms in the United States and elsewhere voluntarily make pledges to do better than governmental regulation. Firms…
The term “reboot” means something particular in the movies. The metaphor is drawn from computers: a “reboot” restarts a machine whose software has malfunctioned. But in cinematic terms a reboot refers…
On Wednesday, the White House announced that the United States would resume diplomatic relations with Cuba in a deal that was brokered with a great deal of help from the Holy See. A statement released…
Oil prices are down almost 50% from their peak this year, and jet fuel has plunged 33% since last December. Given energy costs consume almost a third of airline operating expenses, shouldn’t we expect…
Conventional wisdom holds that China - the world’s most populous country - is an inveterate polluter, that it puts economic goals above conservation in every instance. So China’s recent moves toward an…
While much of the 2014 midterm election analysis centered on the Republican takeover of the Senate, the pundits may have overlooked an important development: the end of a time when politicians looked a…
A few years ago, we met Angie, a hair salon owner in Oregon with health insurance coverage and a stack of unpaid medical bills. She and her husband were both employed – he as a carpenter — and earned about…
The action by President Obama to move toward the normalization of US-Cuba relations is long overdue. The US ruptured ties with Cuba in early January 1961, under President Eisenhower, not only in the context…
NASA has revealed that a whiff of methane has been detected twice in the last couple of years at the Martian surface by the Curiosity Rover. The source of the methane is uncertain. It is not even clear…
The United States has always been known as a nation of immigrants and a top destination for scientists and other highly skilled professionals. That ability to attract the world’s most educated and innovative…
Science isn’t important only to scientists or those who profess an interest in it. Whether you find fascinating every new discovery reported or you stopped taking science in school as soon as you could…
The use of lethal force by police officers in Ferguson and Staten Island has raised many concerns about the dynamic between police and citizens and underlined the fact that all time favorite fictional…
Director Ridley Scott recently set off a firestorm when he dismissed those who criticized him for casting white actors as every major character in the recently released Exodus: Gods and Kings, while reserving…
Molly is one of the most popular party drugs in the US. But what a lot of people may not know is that molly is actually a form of ecstasy (MDMA), and this misunderstanding can put young people at risk…
HIV has infected over seventy million people but only one of them has been cured: Timothy Ray Brown. An HIV-positive resident of Berlin, Germany, Brown developed relapsed leukemia in 2006. To treat the…
Privacy is often thought of as the right to be left alone. Yet, our lives are embedded in relationships – with people, with corporations, with government, and with technological devices – that can’t be…