At Slate, Melinda Henneberger worries that Barack Obama and national Democrats will lose the support of Catholics if they move quickly to pass the Freedom of Choice Act. Catholic hospitals, many of which are located in underserved areas, shouldn’t be forced to perform abortions, Henneberger writes, because most of them would rather go out of […]
Dana Goldstein
Dana Goldstein, a former associate editor and writer at the Prospect, comes from a family of public-school educators. She received the Spencer Fellowship in Education Journalism, a Schwarz Fellowship at the New America Foundation, and a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellowship at the Nation Institute. Her journalism is regularly featured in Slate, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Daily Beast, and other publications, and she is a staff writer at the Marshall Project.
Posted inArticle
IS 2010 TOO LATE TO REPEAL DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL?
Under the Bush administration, record numbers of gay and lesbian service members have been discharged due to their sexual identity, even those in crucial jobs such as translating Arabic into English. Considering the discrimination inherent to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the pressing military and intelligence needs of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, shouldn’t DADT […]
Posted inArticle
ON LONELINESS AND DIVERSITY.
Jennifer Senior has an interesting New York feature on cities and “loneliness” — or why new social science research shows that urban dwellers are less likely to be lonely than people living in suburban, exurban, or rural areas. Cities, Senior writes, foster friendships by allowing individuals to meet more new people and giving them more […]
Posted inEducation in America
THE FUTURE OF THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT.
One of the problems with the Department of Education is that at the nuts and bolts level of how schools are funded and how curricula are made, the United States doesn’t actually have a commitment to a strong federal role in education. But because federal dollars for K-12 are targeted toward disadvantaged students — and […]
Posted inArticle
CARLA BRUNI SARKOZY ON BEING A WORKING FIRST LADY.
I just caught this Today show interview between Matt Lauer and Carla Bruni Sarkozy, France’s first lady. And while it’s interesting to see just how different Carla, a singer-songwriter and former model, is from any American first lady ever, in some ways she is similar. For example, she’ll express feminist principles, but decries feminism: “Usually […]
Posted inArticle
REID: IMMIGRATION REFORM WON’T BE DIFFICULT UNDER OBAMA.
Some interesting stuff in a Gannett interview with Harry Reid. The Senate majority leader says immigration reform should be relatively easy to pass, and that’s he’s more concerned about health care. Q: With more Democrats in the Senate and the House and a Democrat in the White House, how do you see congressional efforts playing […]
Posted inArticle
JANET NAPOLITANO AND THE NATIVIST SHERIFF.
At Slate, Tom Zoellner pulls back the curtain on Janet Napolitano‘s relationship with Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the rabidly anti-immigrant chief of police in Maricopa County, home to Phoenix. Napolitano’s history of looking the other way when it comes to Arpaio’s excesses might mean that as DHS secretary, she couldn’t be trusted to “stand up and […]
Posted inFeatures
Street Fighter
New York City’s transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, is proving that cities don’t need major initiatives like congestion pricing to become more walkable and bikeable.
Posted inArticle
IS CALIFORNIA’S LIGHT RAIL LINE OVER HYPED?
Ben Adler has a provocative piece at Campus Progress arguing that mid-distance light rail — such as the L.A. to San Francisco project that passed on the California ballot — is over hyped. While making the trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco by high-speed rail instead of by flying would save some CO2 emissions, […]
Posted inArticle
ON PHILO-SEMITISM.
Jeffrey Goldberg is trying to come up with a list of the top-50 philo-Semites. There’s something uncomplimentary about the term; it suggests, as Goldberg writes, “anti-Semites who like Jews.” In other words, Christian Zionists such as John Hagee, Pat Robertson, and Jerry Falwell, who love Jews so much that they want us all to leave […]
