Politics

Why is it so hard to acknowledge that President Barack Obama deserves the Nobel Peace Prize? When I went online today, I could feel the cynicism oozing from my computer. “Premature ejaculation in Stockholm,” a Slate editor wrote on Twitter, perhaps not realizing that the prize is given out in Oslo, Norway and not the…

The Nobel Committee livened up an otherwise dull Friday morning with their announcement that President Barack Obama will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Once again tipping their hat to African Americans, after MLK and Ralph Bunche, Obama is the third American black man to win the Nobel Prize—the fourth, if you count Jimmy Carter.…

MOHANDAS GANDHI: Achievements: Mohandas K.  Gandhi was the spiritual and political leader of the Indian independence movement and an advocate of nonviolent resistance as a means to effect social change. Gandhi assumed a leading role in the Indian National Congress in 1921 and transformed the party into a mass movement dedicated to ending social and…

President Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Friday for his work to improve international diplomacy and rid the world of nuclear weapons — a stunning decision to celebrate a figure virtually unknown in the world before he launched his campaign for the White House nearly three years ago. In awarding the coveted prize…

After 20 years of watching Michael Moore in action, from Roger & Me to his latest offering, Capitalism: A Love Story, you’ve got to know what you’re getting: There’s no pretense of journalistic objectivity; no attempt to temper the outrage; no shame in poking relentless fun at the bad guys. His is documentary filmmaking with…

Reports from the first few days of argument in the new Supreme Court term suggest that Justice Sonia Sotomayor has settled comfortably into her role on the bench. That’s a good thing because the former prosecutor will be challenged this term to decide some of the most contentious criminal cases to come before the court…

Watching the Democratic National Convention on my couch last year, I felt like such a geek, getting all choked up and teary as Michelle Obama spoke. As stereotype busting goes, this was a classic moment. It wasn’t so much what she said —although her words were wonderful—as what she symbolized: black excellence, black female excellence.…

When he was in high school, he helped burn down a federal building. He shot and killed a cow for fun. He stole. He violated his probation, and one night after a bar fight, he struck a police officer. In his own words, he was a “monster.” If he had received the fullest possible sentence…

In the feel-good story of the year, Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates sat down for an interview at George Washington University yesterday and said the US was committed to doing a bit o’ nation-building on the regional level with Afghanistan and Pakistan. Backing the play of their boss, they said a deliberate approach to setting…

Eight more US soldiers were killed over the weekend in a fire fight which last twelve hours in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan. From CNN: The fighting lasted about 12 hours, with the militants firing down on the joint U.S.-Afghan outpost from ridgelines above the base, a senior U.S. military official with direct knowledge of…