Thanks for the book suggestions for my July vacation. I just finished another really good book, about China from the thirties through the nineties: Wild Swans (thanks Liz!). Absolutely unbelievable what that country went through in the twentieth century. Reading the book made me a lot more sympathetic to China’s current issues.
I’m going offline [...]

I just finished another great book that recently came out in paperback: The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It, by Paul Collier.
A little over ten years ago I was arrested for protesting the World Bank, IMF, and general villains of globalization. I don’t regret [...]

There’s a clip on Youtube of part of Emily Lyons’ speech before the opening-night performance of “Becoming Emily.” Tonight is the last performance and I hear there are still some tickets available. With lights and music it’s much more powerful even than the experience at the Ethical Society a couple Sundays ago. Watch [...]

It’s been too hectic for me to blog lately, what with last week’s trip to the American Humanist Association conference (which you can read about on their web site) and this week’s American Ethical Union conference (which you can read about on their web site–and if you’re in the area, you can still register for [...]

Yesterday, Dr. George Tiller, one of the few doctors left in America who performed legal late-term abortions for desperate women, was murdered in front of his family and community. Whatever one’s feelings about abortion, the killing of Dr. Tiller is a chilling and evil act. It was clearly meant not only to end a [...]