The door on Haiti’s Villa d’Accueil (seat of the prime minister) revolves; the most recent temporary occupant was Prime Minister Garry Conille, who resigned on Feb. 23 after just four months in office. His resignation came as a result of a number of issues, as the New York Times reports: Months of tension had been building between […]

Will there ever be a TV show that portrays Christians as normal, decent, struggling and complicated human beings? Certainly not in ABC’s new line-up. Reviewing the premiere of “GCB” for the Washington Post, Elizabeth Tenety describes what passes today for serious, empathetic programming about people of faith: After mom Amanda Vaughn loses her Ponzi-scheming husband […]

The ice-cold relationship between Iraq and Saudi Arabia is showing some signs of thawing, according to this report by the Washington Post, which cited a series of developments: Saudi Arabia will restore diplomatic relations to Baghdad for the first time since 2003; Saudi officials last week welcomed a delegation of Iraqi lawmakers to its capital; Iraqi […]

Add Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick to the growing list of blue state, democratic governors taking on core elements of the blue social model. With state businesses straining under a mountain of red tape and “nuisance” regulations, Governor Patrick is preparing to announce a new set of guidelines for lawmakers to ensure that the state develops […]

I had a friend some years ago, an Israeli (since deceased) of large appetites and an expansive sense of humor, who used to joke that Shakespeare was really an Arab: Sheikh Zubar. I remember one day at a hilltop park near his home in Haifa he acted out a very tall tale of Hamlet with […]

Known as the “two cannons,” Bo Xilai and Wang Yang have very different ideas about the future of China. Bo is the Communist Party Chief of Chongqing, and Wang holds the same position in Guangdong. Bo advocates a Maoist revival for China, a new cultural revolution; Wang promotes political reform. Both are candidates for positions […]

Diversity has long been the watchword in college admissions, and among elite schools in particular.  Yet as Princeton professor Uwe Reinhardt writes, diversity advocates tend to focus on race and ethnicity to the exclusion of differences in class and culture. Reinhardt, whose son graduated from Princeton and joined the Marine Corps in 2001, notes with dismay that […]

With elections for the French presidency set to take place later in the spring, the Wall Street Journal reports that a new organization, Young & Poor, “has set itself the task of rating candidates in the presidential election campaign on their youth policies and their credibility in the fight to bring down youth unemployment.” Borrowing the […]

Two articles (1, 2) in today’s New York Times show just how quickly change is coming to higher education. A series of experimental Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) offered by Stanford, MIT, Georgia Tech and others have proven to be quite popular and have spawned at least two start-ups, Udacity and Udemy. The professors seem […]

Judging from newspaper headlines, one would think the Syrian rebels are surrounded by friends. Turkey and Qatar have joined America and Europe in lending them verbal support, and now even Saudi Arabia is adding to the chorus. But the support doesn’t extend far beyond rhetoric. The Wall Street Journal reports that, despite their promises of […]