January 26, 2012
Democracy Can Have a Dark Underbelly
As much as I love democracy, Western Liberal Democracy, this institution has a dark side. Th more...
January 21, 2012
Attacking the British Embassy is an Iranian Rite of Passage.
January 11, 2012
What Happens When People Suddenly Have Choices?
The very notion that people have choices in their lives is so new that much of world is stil more...
January 07, 2012
Arab Spring Is a Conflict between Religion and Nationalism.
The enthusiasm for the Arab Spring and its birth of democracy in the Middle East gives me he more...
December 24, 2011
Immigrants and refugees: Is There Room at the Inn?
December 17, 2011
US Law is Wrestling with Complexities of Antiterrorism
n Boston, a trial is underway. Prosecutors say that Tarek Mahanna, a 29-year-old US-born Egyptian, more...
December 08, 2011
TV Humor and Soaps Are Potent Tools For Democracy.
One of the most devastating tools against tyranny is humor. Dictators cannot stand being lau more...
November 26, 2011
Was the Israeli and Hamas Prisoner Exchange a Good Deal?
A young Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, was snatched by Hamas raiders across the Israeli bord more...
November 19, 2011
Do We Have an Epidemic of Sexual Abuse?
The modern world appears awash in sexual abuse and misbehavior. Over the past decade, we see grownup more...
November 12, 2011
Power to the People! Round Up the Usual Suspects!
November 03, 2011
Global Violence Declines---Except in the Middle East--Part 2.
As mentioned in Part 1 of our two-part look at the decline of violence in the world, daily violence more...
October 22, 2011
Is Human Violence Really on the Wane? Part 1 of 2
Despite rampant pessimism at the moment, history can show us that life has never been better. The ma more...
October 18, 2011
Community: Is Letting the Penniless Sick Die an Option?
Humans do not do well without community. Even religious hermits could not have survived without food more...
October 15, 2011
What are the Best and Worst Countries for Women? (Part 2)
Last week, I addressed a major issue for most of the world’s women: marriage. This time, the more...
October 08, 2011
How Goes It With Marriage Around the World?(Part 1)
This is a two-part series on how women are faring worldwide. Marriage is part I, and four ot more...
September 24, 2011
U.N. “Anti-Racism” Conference Attacks “Islamophobia”
Ten years ago, a UN conference in Durban, South Africa, featured “racism, xenophobia, and re more...
September 17, 2011
How Did the Media Cover 9/11?
Ten years after the most horrific foreign attack on America (the British in I812 and the Jap more...
September 10, 2011
Let Us Put the 10th Anniversary of 9/11 In Context.
Ten years ago, Al Qaeda attacked New York and Washington (and more if they could have pulled more...
August 27, 2011
Does Free Speech Include Hacking and Mayhem?
We do not say often enough that freedom without responsibility is anarchy. This is exactly w more...
August 23, 2011
All the News That’s Fit To Print?
We treasure our freedom of speech, which is the very first amendment in our constitution. We conside more...
August 20, 2011
Do We Know What Makes People Evil?
What could make a nice Middle Class Norwegian murder 74 people because he hated his governme more...
August 06, 2011
We Need Perspective On Norway’s Terror Attack
Watching the terror attack on Norway on TV on July 22, I immediately thought---as did most j more...
July 30, 2011
Some People Choose Bad Bedfellows for Their Summer Vacation
It may become a Rite of Summer: dedicated dissidents trying to break Israel's blockade of Gaza with more...
July 26, 2011
More Humans Can Read, But What Are They Reading?
The “Sky Is Falling” crowd says that too many Americans no longer read. I am not convinced—nor do I more...
July 16, 2011
Heavy Lies the Saudi Head That Wears the Crown.
Although the King of Saudi Arabia does not wear a crown, his head is heavy. His country has problems more...
July 07, 2011
How Do We (and Afghanistan) Negotiate with the Taliban?
It is a matter of doctrine that if the conflicts in Afghanistan (and Pakistan?) are to be re more...
July 02, 2011
Some Democracies Are Not Wonderful.
I recently heard an idealist complaining that President Obama was not enthusiastically suppo more...
June 25, 2011
Is Turkey Still A Secular Muslim Model?
Until now, Turkey has modeled how an Islamic state can modernize and democratize. When the Ottoman E more...
June 18, 2011
For Girls, Idealism Can Be Deadly.
President Kennedy urged American youth to consider a stint in the Peace Corps where they cou more...
June 11, 2011
Sometimes Marriage and Childbirth Customs Have Serious Consequences.
Anthropologists have been telling us for the past century that traditions and cultures have survival more...
June 04, 2011
There Are Consequences For Lying
Brain scientists tell us that when brains are scanned to see which areas light up, brains sc more...
May 28, 2011
Iran, Like Some Here, Also Believes In Apocalyptic Myths.
We live in a time of strange beliefs. The latest comes from Iran. Although a country with sk more...
May 21, 2011
Europe Has Immigration Problems on Steroids!
May 14, 2011
After Arab Spring, Then What?
I was in College (UCLA) during Prague Spring, the peaceful demonstrations by the Czechs agai more...
May 10, 2011
What is the future of religion around the world?
The United States is, and has long been, a religious country, sometimes to the point of obse more...
May 07, 2011
Does the Bin Laden Decapitated Snake Still Have Life?
Was the killing of Osama Bin Laden “justice,” as President Obama has said, or was it “vengea more...
April 30, 2011
Beware of Robot Hummingbirds and Other Spying Creatures
April 23, 2011
American Foreign Policies Cannot Always Be Consistent.
All dictators are not alike. Former US Ambassador to the UN, Jean Kirkpatrick, noted that be more...
April 16, 2011
How Do We Deal With “Sticks and Stones?”
In our present day culture, we have been taught (usually at mother’s knee) that “sticks and stones m more...
April 08, 2011
In a Democracy, Some Decisions Are Agonizing.
For most of human existence, leaders and priests made decisions and ordinary people either o more...
April 02, 2011
Is Peace Breaking Out in the Middle East?
We keep hearing that peace in the Middle East only requires a peace treaty between Israel an more...
March 19, 2011
Why Is There Hysteria Over Radical Islam Hearings?
March 12, 2011
Tyrants have a long history.
Shakespeare said “Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears a Crown” Henry IV, Part Two. Throughout mo more...
March 05, 2011
How Goes It With Women Around the World?
February 24, 2011
Iran Is Closer To Imploding
Although Iran is an Islamic dictatorship that controls its news, certain things are leaking out. The more...
February 19, 2011
Why Egypt and Not Iran?
We have just witnessed a modern popular change of government---a revolution of sorts. Most Egyptian more...
February 12, 2011
How Goes Democracy Around the World?
Democracy Project. The United States has long had a “democracy project.” After World War I, Presiden more...
February 05, 2011
Can “Power to the People” Get Egyptians Democracy?
Reporters standing amidst the throngs in Independence Square in Cairo seem to be carried awa more...
January 29, 2011
Tunisia Is Not the Model For Other Arab World “Revolutions”
Tunisia, one of the more stable dictatorships in the Arab world, has erupted into what looks like a more...
January 22, 2011
Can National Cultures Really Change?
One of the best geo-political analysts and forecasters around is George Friedman, head of ST more...
January 15, 2011
Why Do We Hate Government?
Democrats and Republicans have different ideas (in theory) of what government should do. Both believ more...
January 09, 2011
A Few Surprises Are Happening in Afghanistan!
January 08, 2011
What Is “American Exceptionalism?”
Most Americans believe in “American Exceptionalism,” even when they have never heard the term. This more...
December 31, 2010
What Is “American Exceptionalism?”
Most Americans believe in “American Exceptionalism,” even when they have never heard the term. This more...
December 25, 2010
Being Nice Hasn’t Protected Sweden.
December 11, 2010
How Fragile is Civilization and How Thoughtless is Anarchy!
We in the developed world live in a civilization that would make our ancestors giddy. We hav more...
December 10, 2010
What is National Security?
December 03, 2010
What Can We Do About Fear of Flying?
Whenever I fly, I get patted down because my titanium hip replacement sets off the alarm. I am used more...
November 24, 2010
Time for a National Dialogue on Crime?
November 19, 2010
Sometimes Important News Hides in the Back Pages.
November 13, 2010
Let’s Round Up The Usual Suspects
November 06, 2010
Is the West Really Islamophobic—Or Under Attack?
An AP article on October 5/6 ran with a headline: “5 Germans killed in Pakistan with Europe on Alert more...
October 29, 2010
Some People Have to Lie to Survive.
From the beginning of time, human beings have learned that telling the truth is not always t more...
October 23, 2010
Why Are We No Longer On The Same Page?
I remember when more Americans shared core values than had contentious differences. We have always more...
October 15, 2010
Iran’s Islamic Justice Is a Message to the World
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, convicted in 2006 for having an “illicit relationship” with two men afte more...
October 09, 2010
“The Sky Is Falling” Is Alive and Well—Again.
We are already past the millennium year 2000 (or was it actually 2001 that began the century more...
October 02, 2010
Take Another Look at Tony Blair—Who Maybe Got It Right.
History does not necessarily validate contemporary assessments of famous politicians. Tony Blair, on more...
September 24, 2010
What “World Opinion” Are We Talking About?
September 20, 2010
Laina At the Movies, September, 2010
September 18, 2010
Did We Have Guns of August Again?
September 11, 2010
Sticks and Stones Go Big Time.
An idiot preacher with a congregation of maybe 50 people threatens to burn 200 Korans on 9/1 more...
September 10, 2010
A Venetian Tradition Bites the Dust—a Woman Gondolier!
On 9/11, our country was attacked by a sect particularly offended by the equality of men and more...
Is There Any Hope for Afghanistan?
Imagine a country where:
• Five minutes out of the capital you need armed guards to travel.< more...
• Five minutes out of the capital you need armed guards to travel.< more...
September 04, 2010
Germany Has Had a Curious Century of Islamic Relations.
Germans have been living in northern Europe for several thousand years. The Romans knew them more...
August 27, 2010
Religious Toleration Has Never Been Absolute.
The First Amendment of the US Constitution requires: Congress shall make no law respecting a more...
August 21, 2010
How About a Mosque at Ground Zero?
The proposal to build a large Islamic Cultural Center that includes a mosque two blocks from more...
August 13, 2010
When is Freedom of Speech Incitement to Kill?
We all know that freedom of speech has one commonly accepted exception: when someone falsely yells “ more...
August 07, 2010
When is IQ a Major Security Issue?
July 29, 2010
Is Guatemala A Toxic Place for Women?
About 15 years ago, when I was running the UN Association in San Francisco, I was asked by w more...
July 24, 2010
Why Do Dead Ideas Continue to Haunt Us?
In New Orleans, there is a belief in the “undead”—zombies—who will not stay buried after the more...
July 17, 2010
Are We Going to Need More Immigrants?
Immigration history in the US has always followed predictable trajectories. People around the world more...
July 10, 2010
Does Enlightened Self-Interest Rule the World?
Our founding fathers were influenced by the European Enlightenment, a movement reacting to t more...
July 03, 2010
What Are The Good Old Days?
In final exams given to my World History classes, the last question was: “If you had a time machine more...
June 19, 2010
Europe has an Identity Crisis.
There is an old Persian tale about a man who went up to a palace gate, banging on it and demanding e more...
June 12, 2010
Let’s Have Another Look at the “Humanitarian” Flotilla
A supposedly humanitarian flotilla that set out in June to break the Israeli blockade of Hamas in Ga more...
June 05, 2010
Some Bedfellows are Incomprehensible
There is an Arab adage: “The Enemy of my Enemy is My Friend.” Unfortunately, this is not always so. more...
May 29, 2010
What is a Circassian and Why Should We Care?
May 22, 2010
Why is Sex Such a Global Problem?
For a biological system programmed for species survival, humans have manage to turn sex into more...
May 15, 2010
Can We Ever Force Peace on Combatants?
May 08, 2010
Good Old “May Day” Comes Back From the Dead
May 01, 2010
Annual Darwin Awards?
Darwin Awards usually refer to those whose decisions are so stupid that they remove themselv more...
April 20, 2010
What Can These Women Be Thinking?
April 17, 2010
What Makes President Karzai Tick?
April 10, 2010
How Was the “Christmas Bomber” Radicalized?
April 03, 2010
Tea Party Buffs and the Far Left are Buddies.
March 27, 2010
Was There an Original Human Religion?
March 20, 2010
Whose Ally is Turkey Today?
March 13, 2010
Greece is in the Grip of Denial.
Greece is on the verge of bankruptcy and the rest of the European Union is much alarmed. The more...
February 27, 2010
Who Is “An Enemy of God?”
There is some very strange language coming out of Iran today. Unarmed Demonstrators) are bei more...
February 20, 2010
Europe is Having an Important Burqa Debate.
February 13, 2010
Why Do Small Businesses Get So Little Respect?
A reader responding to my recent column on poisonous ideologies (Fascism, Communism, and Mil more...
February 06, 2010
Does Bad Childrearing Produce Terrorists?
October 17, 2009
Can Too Much Freedom Destroy Democracy?
We have just gone through a summer of obnoxious free speech—which the First Amendment of our more...
October 05, 2009
Is There Any Hope for Afghanistan?
July 18, 2009
The Iranian Revolution May Be In Phase Two
It is not easy to track the progress of the current Iranian Revolution, considering the bloc more...
January 10, 2009