Search results for: “node/Science”
-
What Color Is a Superhero?
Today, with the much-hyped release of Watchmen, is a Holy Day in superhero comic book Geek Nation. The movie, an adaptation of the acclaimed graphic novel, has gotten mixed reviews, but that will not diminish the high level of interest among the comic book devotees flocking to theaters all weekend to see it. But maybe…
-
Besmirch and Destroy
Sen. Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican, is horrified that President Obama has become the “world’s best salesman of socialism.” He grimly argues that conservatives will have to “take to the streets to stop America’s slide into socialism.” And if that is not alarming enough, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has shrilly declared that the…
-
My African Sister
THE FIRST TIME I VISIT my father’s bungalow at the University of Nigeria, I perch on a vinyl settee in the parlor and drink milky tea while my father rambles on about the student riots, the military government’s Structural Adjustment Program, his college years with my mother, what he recalls her saying about the family…
-
The Twain Shall Meet
Building bridges between cultures to promote greater understanding is an age-old dream that too often suffers from clumsy execution, resulting in the exact opposite effect. But recently, the revolutionary German artist Carsten Höller got it right. A big name on the international art scene who exhibits at the Tate Modern in London and the Guggenheim…
-
Hold the Hyphen
Black Americans can bask in the glow of a newfound progressiveness this Black History Month. And our first black president also happens to be our first African-American president. Black and African-American—I can’t help dwelling on those two descriptors and the weight they carry in defining us. I’m brown, thank you. But I’ll settle for black.…
-
Nadya Suleman: 14 Children, No Job, No Partner
Many feminists seem to support Nadya Suleman’s right to have a total of 14 children without the benefit of a job or life partner: it’s her body, after all. Yeah…that’s fine and dandy for her—but what about the children involved? I’m not saying you need a man, ladies. But caring for kids (14!) isn’t the…
-
A Clean Jobs Corps
The hopeful conveners of the “Good Jobs, Green Jobs” conference held in Washington this week are convinced that they have a solution to the twin problems of a shrinking U.S. job market and the existential threat of climate change. Their answer? Green-collar employment for millions of Americans. We’ve heard of white- and blue-collar work—but green…
-
The State of Prevention
Barack Obama stood, jacket off and sleeves rolled, shouting into his mic and straining to be heard over the roaring crowd that turned up to welcome him back to Kenya. It was August 26, 2006, and the world was already watching. The young senator was just a few months away from launching his improbable bid…
-
The State of Treatment
One thing is clear about the new Congress and the Obama administration: They agree on the fact that health care reform, broadly, must be among the first policy challenges tackled in 2009. Indeed, the first nomination hearing the new Congress held upon convening in January was for Tom Daschle, Obama’s choice to lead the Department…
-
Motown 2.0
R&B albums rarely combine the multiple musical legacies of one given city and catch the zeitgeist of its time as masterfully as PPP’s sophomore disc, Abundance (Ubiquity). As the title suggests, producer Waajeed and multi-instrumentalist Saadiq—the group’s two brainiacs—pack so much historical reference, so much modern perspective, so much deft musicality, so much lyrical ingenuity,…