Search results for: “node/Science”
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The Bank Tried to Take My Home!
On June 8, Archer Mapp’s mortgage payment doubled. Wachovia, his bank, took twice what they had regularly debited from his bank account. It wasn’t because his adjustable-rate mortgage reset. Mapp, who lives in Washington, has steady, full-time employment. For 13 years, he and his family have lived in a Capitol Hill row house. Before June,…
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Inside the Mind of a Genius: Richard O. Prum
Now that you know How to Be a Black Genius, members of the 2009 class of MacArthur fellows give some insight into the way they live and think. Age: 48 Current Location: New Haven, Connecticut Occupation: Professor at Yale University 1. What four adjectives would your first best friend use to describe you? Enthusiastic, passionate, adventurous, nerdy 2. What…
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Who Will Teach the Children?
President Barack Obama had more homework than usual this week. In the wee hours of Monday morning, Obama surprised administrators at Washington’s Sidwell Friends Academy, where his two daughters attend school. He and his wife showed up for the quarterly ritual known as the parent-teacher conference. After hearing about Malia and Sasha from their teachers,…
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Fly Little Biracial Balloon Boy, Fly…
If you happen to be a biracial kid stuck growing up in a miscegenation-phobic time-warp like Tangipahoa Parish, La., where Justice of the Peace Keith Bardwell apparently refuses to marry interracial couples because he feels “the children will suffer later,” then you, at some point, might have dreamed of floating away in your father’s helium…
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Welcome to the Fun House: Obama Plays Ball With Cabinet
I imagine keeping house where one works—running the free world, no less—can be decidedly unfun at times. Yet the stack of problems and tough decisions on US domestic and foreign policy haven’t stopped the multitasking president Barack Obama from trying to have a little fun at home. To wit: The whole Obama family hosted what’s…
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Is Higher Education in America Worth Saving?
As the 2009-1010 school year gets underway, President Barack Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have been making strong moves to ensure that American higher education remains competitive in the 21st century economy. Commentary has focused on Obama and Duncan’s plans to extend the school year to match the time foreign counterparts spend educating their…
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Jimmy Carter's Difficult Truth
One of the prerogatives of advanced age is the right to say things that others can’t or won’t. For many people of advanced age, the decision to speak truth becomes non-negotiable, and elision is replaced by a determined and consistent effort to tell it like it is. This can explain the inappropriate uncle at Thanksgiving…
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Lack of Black Techies, Web Redlining and That Darned Digital Divide
At last week’s Gov 2.0 gathering—dedicated to exploring the ways that the Internet can improve public policy—Silicon Valley and Washington came together to discuss biometric security, open-source policymaking, geo-targeting and other breakthrough technologies. Roaming the halls? Internet luminaries like Google vice president Vint Cerf, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark and Vivek Kundra, chief information officer of…
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The Kennedy Strategy
As Congress returns from summer recess and President Obama prepares to address the nation on health care, it’s worth remembering that it’s been barely two weeks since the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy. We’d known that Sen. Kennedy was terminally ill since 2008, when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. But his death still…
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The Van Jones Affair
Shortly after the news that President Barack Obama’s “green jobs adviser” Van Jones had resigned over the weekend, Republicans were rejoicing and claiming the “scalp” of the man that Fox News host Glenn Beck had branded a “socialist” and an “ex-con.” For weeks, Beck had launched an extensive on-air campaign against Jones. And on Sunday,…