I had a good laugh when I saw The New York Times story last week with the headline: “Members of Jewish Student Group Test Permissible Discussion On Israel.” The piece told of the decision by the Hillel Jewish student society at Swarthmore College to break with the national organization over its ban on discussions of […]

Read more

Economic inequality, we suspect, may have crept into more conversations in 2013 than ever before. But people aren’t just talking about how unequal we’ve become. They’re talking about antidotes to the avarice all around us. We’ve assembled out of those discussions a list that samples 2013′s most promising and provocative inequality-busting ideas, proposals, and campaigns. […]

Read more

(Khalil Bendib for OtherWords) You have to consult dictionary.com for the definition of “trillionaire.” Webster’s doesn’t yet recognize trillionaire as a word. But it will. If you’re under 60, America’s first trillionaire will likely appear in your lifetime. And the recent budget deal in Congress does nothing to alter that scenario. Unless our leaders change […]

Read more

In a new decision in support of the NSA’s phone metadata surveillance program, U.S. district court Judge William Pauley cites an intelligence failure involving the agency in the lead-up to the 9/11 attacks. But the judge’s cited source, the 9/11 Commission Report, doesn’t actually include the account he gives in the ruling. What’s more, experts […]

Read more

Austerity is often made to seem vital, the only route out of a fiscal disaster. But a closer look at the reality of the current crises—in municipalities like Detroit and Stockton, Calif., the state of Illinois, and even the U.S. Postal Service—reveals a much more deliberate progression. In each case, the same pattern develops: beleaguered […]

Read more