America’s food safety regime is a fractured, dysfunctional mess.

The widening competition for Arctic resources and access begs U.S. policy coherence.

How Silent Cal grabbed the Gipper’s ear.

An inconvenient goof.

As many of you have noticed, the last couple of days have seen some slow blogging.  This is partly because the term paper grading season is upon us and I have been spending my spare time blighting the hopes and lives of America’s most promising youth.But also I’m preparing for a two-week trip to Israel.  […]

The latest sickening bout of stock market turbulence underlines the point I made on this blog last December; the next stage of the global economic crisis is centered in Greece.That’s an unpleasant reality for our European friends who have spent much of the last decade chattering about American decline and the coming crisis of the […]

The normal routines of life ground to a halt yesterday for the Mead clan; my father’s older brother got married yesterday to the woman he loves.The wedding was held at the Washington National Cathedral; the bride has worked as a volunteer there for many years and knew exactly how to arrange the most glorious setting […]

Last week I started the daunting project of developing a lifetime reading list with some ancient historians.  This week it’s time for ancient epics: the four great narrative poems of classical civilization that have echoed down the ages. My list includes the three ‘standard’ epics: the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Aeneid.  It also includes […]

Documents captured from radicals and terrorists in Pakistan warn darkly about a new axis of evil in the world: a ‘Zionist Hindu Crusader‘ alliance bringing Israel, India, and the United States together in a war on Islam.  They are wrong about the last part; all three countries want peaceful relations with Islamic countries based on […]

“I used to be Snow White,” Mae West famously said, “but I drifted.”Power has been drifting toward Washington and the federal government in the American political system; it needs to start drifting back home to the states and to local communities or our democratic system will become increasingly strained. The latest poll from Pew is […]