The 2008 Iowa Caucuses — a Newcomer Breaks Through
It's an odd political moment: both major parties are hosting their most open Presidential primaries in memory -- no incumbents are running for President. Both have surfaced strong fields with odd...
“Don’t Tell Me That This is the Best America Can Do”
Last year I got in touch with a friend who had backed Alibris in its very early days. At the time he invested, he warned me that he could be "pathologically...
Thinking Inside the Box
The Nobel Prize winning physicist and genius quantum mechanic Niels Bohr once pointed out that "Prediction is difficult, especially about the future" -- a fact that he demonstrated empirically with respect...
Who is Norman Borlaug? Why is He our Greatest Living American?
For my money, the highest award a human being can receive is the Nobel Peace Prize, even if the process for determining the award makes it far from a perfect.
Like the...
To Infinity and Beyond: Steve Jobs Does it Again
Every year at this time I make a habit of watching the finest business presentation on the planet: the Steve Jobs keynote address at Mac World. The event is held nearby,...
“No Power in the Market and No Voice in the System”
Bill Gates' Harvard commencement address is being circulated widely in Silicon Valley -- and with good reason. He gave an outstanding speech (rather, he wrote an outstanding speech -- he cannot...
BDS Spreads as Blair Prepares to Step Down
Timothy Garton Ash, one of Europe's most astute political observers, recently described the extreme reaction of dinner guests to unpopular political leaders.
"...The sole duty of any self-respecting commentator is to interrogate...
The Democrat’s Smartest Conservative
Quick, which presidential candidate recently called for a huge expansion of the American military so that it can "stay on the offense" and then spelled out a plan to expand our...
David Petraeus, Rock Star General
Every great country has always honored its finest warriors. School children are taught the names of our nation's war heroes: John Paul Jones, Ulysses S. Grant, Billy Mitchell, Alvin York, Jimmy...
Great Teachers
Our National Report Card, the so-called National Assessment of Educational Progress, was released yesterday. Our kids are flunking and it is very serious. Nearly 40% of high-school seniors scored below basic level...
Angels in Disguise
Cities concentrate people, wealth, culture, and memories. In New York this week, I walked by an Indian restaurant and recalled a lunch almost twenty years earlier with friends who tried to...
The Speech
It is by a considerable distance the finest American speech of the twentieth century. In its staging and phrasing, it consciously evoked the finest American speech ever, delivered nearly one hundred...
A Freak of Nurture
Michael Lewis (author of the must-read Liar's Poker and Moneyball as well as the somewhat less terrific New New Thing) recently published The Blind-Side: Evolution of a Game. Despite the title,...
The Immortal Game
During the summer of 1972, I worked as a cook in a small resort in New York's Hudson Valley. It was a small, family-run place patronized entirely by elderly Jews from...
Triumph of the Philoperisterons
Every now and again someone comes along and makes me change my mind. They assault my prejudices with facts, challenge my beliefs with evidence, and even cause me to reinterpret certain...