Politics
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Obama Must Review Our Afghanistan Strategy
The recent release of more than 90,000 documents by Wikileaks gives the strong impression that President Obama’s strategy in Afghanistan is in disarray. The body count of U.S. soldiers is rising. Last month represented the highest number of monthly U.S. casualties to date in Afghanistan, and this month’s casualty figures may be worse. Meanwhile, the…
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The Other Mad Men
The start of a new season of Mad Men has had its loyal followers wondering what’s next for the talented but conflicted alpha male Don Draper as he leads a group of disaffected executives in the launch of a new ad agency on Madison Avenue. In its past seasons, the Emmy-nominated series deftly revealed personal and…
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CHART: The Gap Between Promises and Reality
More than six months after a 7.2 earthquake struck Haiti’s Port-au-Prince capital, the Caribbean nation has been slow to recover. Some 60 international organizations and countries, including the United States, rushed to aid the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country, pledging $5.6 billion in March for reconstruction projects this year and next. Of that amount, a mere…
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Voting Rights Act at 45: What's to Celebrate?
Nearly half a century after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, which was signed into law by President Johnson on August 6, 1965, 96 percent of African-American voters voted for a president who looked like them for the first time in the nation’s existence. It was a big victory for blacks — politically minded…
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Dear Wyclef: Please Don't Run!
Dear Wyclef,It pains me to have to tell you this — especially in public. Particularly because it goes to the heart of someplace and something we both care deeply about. But I have to, because as much as I love you, I love Haiti more — so much so that I’m unwilling to put her…
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The Voting Rights Act, 45 Years Later
“A few years ago, people could not vote simply because of the color of their skin,” recalls Georgia Congressman John Lewis, former chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). “You had to count the number of jelly beans in a jar or the number of bubbles in a bar of soap. Black teachers and…
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Naomi Campbell, Nelson Mandela and War Criminals
Naomi Campbell’s testimony at the Special Court for Sierra Leone was the culmination of a decade-long exercise in vulgarity. How the British supermodel ended up in the trial of Charles Taylor, a warlord accused of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, troubles me for a plethora of reasons. This is not about…
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Will Blacks Accept Gay Marriage?
A couple of years back on Real Time With Bill Maher, the ubiquitous Cornel West was asked if black folks were decidedly more homophobic than other groups. Parsing his words carefully, the ordained Baptist minister said, “I don’t think we are any more homophobic than anyone else.” Maybe not, but certainly not any less. The…
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Has Obama Kept His Promise to New Orleans?
President Barack Obama made a campaign promise that he would not leave New Orleans and the Gulf Coast hanging in their post-Katrina recovery. As the fifth anniversary of that tragic storm approaches, it’s time to take inventory of how much Obama has lived up to that promise. Since Hurricane Katrina and the levee-breaching floods that…