Guns as art and in the world
At my granddaughter’s art school, student work features what struck me as an awful lot of weapons: handguns, automatic rifles, daggers. “Well, Gran,” she replied to my comment on this high degree of...
View ArticleRussian orphan Artyom, & another orphan story
Artyom and Vasya came from the same part of the globe as adoptive Americans — but the similarities end right about there. This is a personal perspective on another, happier-ending orphan story....
View ArticleNobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus speaks on micro-lending — and world hope
Image via Wikipedia Recently, someone remarked to Muhammad Yunus, the Bangladeshi banker/ economist/ crusader against poverty, that he must be a very rich man. “I said, why would I be a rich man?” he...
View ArticleDoes this sound exciting? New TV channel for the over-50s
As if there weren’t already about 500 more TV channels than anyone can possibly manage, news comes from Britain about Vintage TV’s plans to launch in a few months. It is the generation that has had it...
View ArticleBest city for geezers? NY lays claim
Image via Wikipedia New York City seems to be all aglow in being named by the World Health Organization to its Global Network of Age-friendly cities. As Clyde Haberman reported about the event in the...
View ArticleAfghanistan suggestion: Make tea, not war
Image via Wikipedia A glimmer of good news from the endless bad-news war in Afghanistan: the people doing the fighting are in touch with someone who was winning, a long time before they started...
View ArticleSkipping towards Armageddon
Those people wandering around with giant signs proclaiming “THE END OF THE WORLD IS AT HAND!”? Sometimes you have to wonder if they’re onto something. A recent Commonwealth Club program brought...
View ArticleBold Hope for the World’s Poor
A Solution to Poverty? If governments can’t solve world poverty, and nonprofits can’t make serious dents in it… can the private sector be the answer? With the help of you and me and major investors?...
View ArticleRussia-Ukraine Conflict in One Fast Hour
Foreign Affairs 101: Ukraine Majority Language Map If it’s possible to condense the incomprehensibly complex Russia/Ukraine conflict into one coherent hour, Matthew Rojansky can do it. Rojansky,...
View ArticleISIS: What’s In A Name?
Remember when Isis was just a Greek goddess? The goddess of – among other things – health and wisdom? Not many people today would know the goddess, but there are few who don’t know ISIS. According to...
View ArticleCelebrating the Iran Nuclear Deal
The mood was sheer celebration. “We’ve moved the boulder in the road,” said Joe Cirincione; “this model can be useful for other work.” Moving the boulder, a distinguished group of speakers repeatedly...
View ArticleSetting Patterns: Defaulting to Justice
Nishioka with the author “You know why we drill?” the Lt. Colonel said; “to establish a pattern.” That brief story was told recently by Dr. Rodger Nishioka, keynote speaker at a conference that was all...
View ArticleOn Light Overcoming Darkness
While governments talked of war and security last week, and innocents in Lebanon, Kenya, France, Afghanistan and elsewhere buried their dead, faith communities around the globe struggled to find ways...
View ArticleLooking Globally at Death –& Life
In Japan the shift from Buddhism to secularism is complicating life and death. Ireland has launched a nationwide effort to encourage end-of-life planning. A Celtic Storyteller now based in Canada draws...
View ArticleOne Bright New Voice for Justice
My money is on today’s young people. Faced with problems local, national and global that earlier generations could barely have imagined they remain undaunted. They take on mountainous debt to get good...
View ArticleI . . Am . . The Refugee
“If I’d been caught,” she said quietly, “I would have been sent back to North Korea where I would have faced prison, or possibly execution.” She had escaped into China, only to find that refugees were...
View ArticleSewing Seeds of Peace & Justice
I have always drawn the line at public demonstrations. Writing letters to editors or legislators, signing petitions, calling representatives, even publishing blogs & the occasional tweet – those...
View ArticleNuclear-free World? Possibly. Some Day
Aaron Lobel (r) and Philip Yun at Ploughshares event Ploughshares Fund supporters – Americans committed to reducing nuclear stockpiles, preventing new nuclear states, and increasing global security –...
View ArticleMaking All Knowledge Available to All? For Free? Believe It
Universal Access to All Knowledge. In other words, let’s gather up and digitize everything on the internet, and offer it to everyone on the planet. For free. Every book in every library, every website,...
View ArticleRussia — and Nuclear Arms Racing
Russia occupies a soft spot in my heart. It grew out of the boundless enthusiasm for everything Slavic exuded by my Russian-major college roommate – or may have been seeded earlier by the...
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