It’s been a while since I addressed specifically Middle Eastern issues in this space, but of course that does not mean nothing is going on there worth commenting upon. If anything, too much is going on.In addition to the standard frustrations of the bloodletting in Syria, the fragility of the new Iraq, the even greater […]

Two periodicals that I read regularly have just published special anniversary issues. National Catholic Reporter has come out with a special issue to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council. Der Spiegel, the German news magazine, has a special issue devoted to another fiftieth anniversary, that one of a series […]

Yesterday I looked at how the third debate offers President Obama his best hope for a knockout victory in this series of one-on-one match ups that has riveted much of the country over the last few weeks. But Governor Romney also has an opportunity here too, and while foreign policy has helped the President more […]

The third debate could be The One for President Obama. A strong, confident performance could give him his most successful night since the debates began and leave him poised for a strong finish in a close race.  But it comes at a difficult time; President Obama would have had a much easier time winning a […]

In a scandal that rocked Wall Street, prominent businessman Rajat Gupta was convicted in June on charges related to insider trading. Over a period of years, Gupta leaked information to Raj Rajaratnum, who illegally used it to make investments. Before his crimes were discovered, Gupta had served as the head of McKinsey, the famous consulting […]

A few years ago Lynne Truss published a book called Talk to the Hand. Coming on the heels of her smash hit, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, this book was intended as an educated rant about the appalling rudeness of contemporary Western cultures. In the course of her rant she necessarily struggled with the reasons for […]

Once in a while a more or less esoteric academic event is picked up by the media. This has happened in September following a gathering (of all places in Rome) of a scholarly association of Coptic studies. This must be a small and exclusive club. (It must be satisfying to belong. I’m a little envious. […]

For a small country located in a very tough neighborhood, Georgia has not received lots of attention since 2008, when Russia invaded the country and declared South Ossetia and Abkhazia independent. And with the world’s attention focused elsewhere (elections in the U.S., the humanitarian disaster in Syria, the challenge of Iran), many might have missed […]

This is the time in the American election cycle when much ink is spilled on that peculiar American institution known as the Electoral College. The debate has become quite stale and predictable: Reformers (mostly on the left) argue that the college is an antiquated relic of the horse-and-buggy era that offends a basic principle of […]

Some disappointed Romney partisans are angry that Hillary seems to be trying to save Obama’s bacon. That’s a simplistic misreading of a complicated story. The head of a cabinet department should take responsibility when something under their field of operations goes wrong. Remember Rumsfeld and Abu Ghraib? He didn’t give the orders, but something terrible […]