On February 3, Martin Kramer, visiting scholar at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center, gave a six-minute speech at the annual Herzliya Conference in Herzliya, Israel (discussed by Jeremy below). In that short amount he time, he provided a clear call for the West to curb Gaza’s exploding population by ending pro-natal subsidies for Gazans: “Aging populations reject radical agendas, and the Middle East ... Read More
Harvard Weatherhead fellow Martin Kramer’s recent remarks on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have created some controversy in the blogosphere. Media Matters’ M.J. Rosenberg insinuated in blog posts on The Huffington Post and Talking Points Memo that Kramer was “advocating Palestinian genocide” when he suggested that “the West [should stop] providing pro-natal subsidies for Palestinians with refugee status.” Rosenberg concluded, “This is ... Read More
How the European right wing have become unlikely innovators in the worldwide financial crisis The economic crisis the world is currently experiencing has been the worst since the Great Depression. In such a period, nothing could be easier than pointing out market failures and the inefficiencies of deregulated capitalism. Indeed, it should be the perfect setting for an increase in ... Read More
Have the FARC finally met their match? A recent string of defeats for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Latin America’s oldest, largest, and most dangerous rebel group, signals perhaps the best chance Colombia has had for peace in 44 years of armed struggle. During much of the 1990s, a drug-fueled civil war between left-wing rebels, right-wing paramilitaries, and ... Read More
The dangers of translating comics to the big screen Watchmen, a legend among comic books, has long been thought unfilmable, not only by its author, Alan Moore, but also by the comic’s rabid fans, who point to its intricate comics-within-comics, flashbacks, and rapid shifts in focus, all ill-suited to the big screen. After 20 years of abortive efforts, we finally ... Read More
Crucial crossroad, or more of the same? Every election cycle, we are told that the future of the Supreme Court, and particularly the future of abortion jurisprudence, is at stake. This election-centric view infects the mainstream media, which routinely publish October headlines like “This time, Roe v. Wade really could hang in the balance,” as the Los Angeles Times declared ... Read More
Reconciling perceptions and realities of economic mobility in America
Roberts, Kennedy, and Collegiality on the Supreme Court During the summer of 2006, Chief Justice John Roberts spoke publicly about the need for greater unity on the nation’s highest court. In a commencement address at Georgetown Law School, he urged that “unanimity, or near-unanimity” would yield “clarity and guidance” for lawyers and lower courts trying to understand the Supreme Court’s ... Read More
On the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth, only 39% of Americans believe in his theory of evolution. This is, naturally, quite disturbing. But there are even more interesting nuggets in that Gallup poll. How do you explain, for instance, the startling fact that 36% of Americans just don’t know whether or not they believe in evolution? The explanation is ... Read More
Bush, Evangelicals, and the Republican PartyBy Ray Duer ‘11 Coming on the heels of President Clinton’s scandal-ridden second term, and campaigning in 2000 as a “compassionate conservative” with the promise of a return of moral fortitude to the Oval Office, George W. Bush won the heart of one of America’s most powerful voting blocs, Protestant Evangelicals. In 2004 family values ... Read More
