Afshin Ellian wrote an excellent piece in the Wall Street Journal. He concludes it with: The emergence of a democratic Iran is therefore not only a moral imperative but should be the foreign policy priority of every cold-hearted realist as well as multicultural engager. That’s why it is so incomprehensible that the Obama Administration still [...]
A study recently found that children on Medicaid are given antipsychotic drugs at a rate 4 times higher than those on private health insurance. The implications for health and justice are deep. Antipsychotic drugs are severely overprescribed – and their long-term damage to society has not yet been registered. The article posits this trend among [...]
Poem forwarded by my cousin Sergio. Apologies to non-Spanish speakers… Final del año Ni el pormenor simbólico de reemplazar un nueve por un diez ni esa metáfora baldía que convoca a un lapso que muere ni el cumplimiento de un proceso astronómico aturden y socavan la altiplanicie de esta noche y nos obligan a esperar [...]
While many of the choices on TIME Magazine’s Top 10 lists for 2009 were lame or uninspired, here are a few worthwhile picks: MOST HILARIOUS VIDEO: Bonnie Tyler spoof of 80s (Other viral videos: I had already noted great videos including of Susan Boyle, and there are other good ones like this wedding procession, the [...]
I was surfing through TIME Magazine’s Top 10 Everything of 2009 list. While many of their choices seem random and uninspired at best, some gems hidden among their finds included their choice of Adam Lambert’s "Mad World" among their top songs. I read the lyrics several times, pasted below, and listened also to the original [...]
Very much in OneVoice, and very much with a sentiment like that of the KIND Movement, Starbucks bested all videos I got this season with this awesome compilation (which I received from Jason Alexander): musicians and ordinary citizens across the world joined on the same day at the same time to sing the same song: [...]
Yesterday I tried Softsoap’s Pure Cashmere Hand soap. I was struck by the proposition that a soap could contain "cashmere extract" because a while back I had wondered what "cashmere" really was. Most consumers just know Cashmere sweaters as exceptionally soft but don’t know where "cashmere" comes from, so I guess the marketing team at [...]
This is another in a series (see prior examples here and here) of magical uses of art in real life situations – which accentuates all that is good about art and about life – and can be a phenomenal marketing tool:
This season many millions of pine trees are being chopped off to decorate Christmas living rooms. With growing awareness about the harm of reducing the footprint of trees in our globe, this tradition (which I assume does not have any grounding in biblical or canonical precepts of Christian religion) must be getting questions more and [...]
I was really touched by Maureen Dowd’s eulogy column about Abe Pollin. He follows the tradition of frugal leaders like David Ben-Gurion, and characters from Isaac Bashevis-Singer’s shtetl stories, whose Judaism was about helping those in need.