Once in a while, usually in the fall, the iron doors of American Politics creak open and I am asked to participate in a small way. This august institution — along with any number of do-gooder organizations scattered across the land — tells me that this is a critical time. I must act. If I…

About one month into my freshman stint at a left coast school known for student activism, I spied a flyer on a phone pole. “BART Alert!” it screamed, referring to the local rail transit system. I am still not sure what such an alert really is, but this particular flyer urged me to show up…

One hesitates, in these days, to hold up professional cycling as a moral exemplar. For years, allegations of steroid use have dogged the sport. The vaunted Tour de France and its yellow jersey have taken on the odor of corruption of late and watching it has felt a little bit like watching professional bodybuilding, or…

This week, I am in Dayton at the Kettering Foundation’s Public Policy Workshop. I am writing a series of small pieces about the experience. Thank you to my colleague, Taylor Willingham, for suggesting I do so. _______ These are people who would not normally mix. Or would they? Sitting in Salon G of the Dayton…

The Senate’s bipartisan review of FEMA’s response to Hurricane Katrina’s devastation came out late last month. If you had read the business pages, you would have been able to predict the outcome. Official Washington has been in a corporate-style mergers and acquisitions frenzy ever since 9/11 kicked off the creation of the Department of Homeland…

I wanted to let you know of a recent project I have been working on. The Northwest Area Foundation last month released results of a nationwide survey that reveals an America acutely aware of people’s financial struggles, yet optimistic that the number of people struggling can be reduced. Almost all survey respondents (92 percent) said…

This week the Supreme Court decided in favor of the government and against a collection of universities who did not wish to be compelled to allow military recruiters on campus. This complaining group had a name that referred the amusing notion of “Institutional Rights” (perhaps because they had to fill out the acronym “FAIR”). The…

This also appeared, in adapted form, in theJanuary 23, 2006 edition of The Christian Science Monitor. Just last week, walking through the lobby of my favorite movie megaplex with my children, we were accosted by people paid to bother us. The offered my children tattoos, and stretchy bracelets. They were pitching a mobile phone geared…

In the computer world, there is a fight brewing between the hulking behemoth market-leader and a ragtag group of scrappy underdogs. It pits a large corporation with a vision of informational hegemony against lone individuals, laboring on their own to perfect their intellectual creations. What the individuals have on their side is the simplicity and…