As Syria goes deeper into civil war (and may draw in Turkey) and Egypt's first civilian president, Mohamed Morsi, calls for the release of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing plotter, "blind sheik" Omar Abdel-Rahman, here's a small story that could be even more dispiriting when thinking about the future of the region. Well-known Algerian author Boualem Sansel was …
Continue reading Hatred trumps culture with Algerian novelist’s trip to Jerusalem
"Democracy is a new thing in my country," Naheed Farid, the youngest member of the Afghanistan parliament, said to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday morning at Wellesley College. "Don't you think that after 2014 there will be disaster for democracy in the region?" she asserted. Clinton, along with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, made the answer very clear …
Continue reading Hillary Clinton challenges global women leaders
Aaron Deveau was only 17 when he crossed the center line while texting and killed Daniel Bowley, Jr. of New Hampshire, the father of three grown children. Deveau, now 18 years old, is the first person to be convicted under a law making it a crime to injure someone while texting. Even without the specific texting …
Continue reading Conviction in text-driving killing should be a wake-up call
NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg yesterday urged the decriminalization of small amounts of marijuana. This follows on the heels of last week's move to ban the sale of sugary drinks in cups exceeding 16 ounces. At first, this looks contradictory: pot's okay but not a big container of sugary beverage. Enough mayoral micromanaging! Still, let's look …
Continue reading Bloomberg is for marijuana and against sugary drinks
I still remember writing about the deaths in the early eighties of a Hyde Park family of four killed in a car crash caused by a drunk driver. The shock of that tragedy seemed to jolt people into taking drunk driving more seriously. And well it should have. Back in the '70's and '8o's, drunk driving was the …
Continue reading Judges still look the other way in drunk driving fatalities
It would have been easier for Barack Obama to wait until after the election to announce that he thinks gays should have the right to marry. He could have let people assume that V.P. Joe Biden’s and Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s comments to that effect were a hint that such was the thinking inside the …
Marjorie Arons-Barron 