New York City's recent brush with a transit strike should be a wake-up call for city and state leaders. It's time to inject private competition into Gotham's public transportation system to control costs and make the city less vulnerable to threats every few years...
POLITICS
It’s My Life! A Doctor Has a Right to His Own Life
When I came to the United States from South Africa as a young doctor 17 years ago, I was excited. I was leaving behind an oppressive, racist regime, and I was entering a country founded on the inviolable rights of an individual to life, liberty and the pursuit of...
Achievement
"I do my work". He who in faith can say That simple phrase, is set upon the way To bend the will of Fortune to his will. The world makes place for him whose strength and skill Rebel at doubt and rankle at delay. The visions that hold true, the dreams that stay Are...
Success
If you want a thing bad enough To go out and fight for it, Work day and night for it, Give up your time and your peace and your sleep for it If only desire of it Makes you quite mad enough Never to tire of it, Makes you hold all other things tawdry and cheap for it If...
Death Penalty by the Numbers
This month the Justice Department released "Capital Punishment 2001," its latest annual survey of death penalty statistics. A prowl through the data prompts a few reflections on the capital punishment debate. 1. It is striking that a controversy so large revolves...
What Riyadh Buys in Washington
Previously, I contrasted two official U.S. responses to news that the Saudi ambassador's wife possibly funded the 9/11 hijackers: The Bush administration pooh-poohed it, while leading U.S. senators expressed outrage. I argued that this difference results from a...
World on Fire: Dangerous Democracy?
One of the cornerstones of the war on terrorism is the premise that promoting democracy is a long-run goal for creating a better world, one which will not breed so many terrorists. But a new book, "World on Fire" by Professor Amy Chua of the Yale law school, argues...
Growth, Yes. Stimulus Package, no.
Now that President Bush has named his new economic team, he's expected to turn his attention to a stimulus package. I hope not. Growth, yes. Stimulus, no. "Stimulus" implies a goose to the economy - or, more politely, the quick boost you get when you jump-start a dead...
Time’s “Person” of the Year: American Values, or Media Values?
I remember as a child eagerly awaiting Time magazine's choice of its Man of the Year each year. I believed that there were great men and great events in the world that I needed to know about, and that there was a great arbiter of them -- Time -- that somehow make the...
NY Times Snow Job on Recently Nominated Treasury Secretary
Newspapers are supposed to report the news -- facts -- so that people can use those facts when they form their opinions. But where do newspapers get facts? How do reporters know that what they are reporting is true? How do readers know? These questions are most...
NY Times Snow Job on Recently Nominated Treasury Secretary
Newspapers are supposed to report the news -- facts -- so that people can use those facts when they form their opinions. But where do newspapers get facts? How do reporters know that what they are reporting is true? How do readers know? These questions are most...
The UN Human Rights Agenda: A Strategy of Diversion
[Originally this article was supposed to be published in The New York Times. Read what the author went through once the Times "accepted" it.--CM]Every year over 100,000 people write letters about human rights violations which begin "Dear Mr. UN Secretary General" and...
The New York Times: “All the News that’s Fit to Print”–Not
Ever wondered what goes on inside the editorial department of the New York Times? Here is what professor Anne Bayefsky faced when the New York Times accepted her piece "The UN Human Rights Agenda: A Strategy of Diversion."--CMAuthor's Note: ["The UN Human Rights...
Tis the Season…to Understand Individual Rights
Most Americans think slavery ended with the 13th Amendment in 1865. It did, in the United States. But it is alive and well today in the Sudan and Mauritania. In these African countries, blacks suffer at the hands of Arabs, who ransack villages, kill the men and sell...
Peace on Earth — and Its Price
This year, more than most, many people are choosing to spend their Christmas by searching for a haven of peace and tranquility in their homes and families. But we have not been able to do so without a few reminders of the value and the cost of that peace. I have been...
The Conservative Cult of Human Sacrifice
In a column earlier this month in TownHall by Ross Mackenzie, Mackenzie issues a call for mandatory universal service for America's youth. "Compulsory universal service--one year with an eight-week military component, men and women, no exceptions except for physical...
Piss off the Terrorists and their Allies: Privatize the World Trade Center
Jack Smith of Monticello, Minnesota, wrote in the following to a Wall Street Journal columnist regarding the site of the World Trade Center, expressing his disagreement with the idea of rebuilding it: This is Gettysburg, the Alamo, the Arizona Memorial. Sorry,...
Random Thoughts for December 2002
Random thoughts on the passing scene: It is a little much when people come to this country preaching hatred against others and demanding tolerance for themselves. Thanksgiving may be our most old-fashioned holiday. Gratitude itself seems out of date at a time when so...
A No-Account Debate
"Grandma Doesn't Scare Anymore," reads the headline of a post-election Wall Street Journal editorial noting the success of candidates who back Social Security reform. Seniors are "willing to listen to politicians who tell them the truth about the system's long-term...
Racism in Congress: The Black Caucus
In expressing "outrage" over Senator Trent Lott's praise of Strom Thurmond and his segregationist vision, the Congressional Black Caucus was calling the kettle black. Every member of the "Black Caucus" should follow Lott's lead and resign from Congress for helping to...
Invest in the Market for the Long Run
My favorite curmudgeon, the Scrooge of Stocks, is a former National Geographic photographer named Charles Allmon. He lives in Potomac, manages about $100 million for clients, and is the founder and editor of Growth Stock Outlook, now in its 38th year. When I first met...
Snow Job in the Iraqi Desert
That's it. The dog ate Saddam Hussein's homework. Just as no self-respecting teacher would accept this lamest of excuses, so the U.N. Security Council surely will not accept the pathetic explanations that are being served up by Iraq's representatives to the United...
Faith is Not Enough
Senator Santorum last Sunday assured us that Senator Lott could not be a racist, as he is a man of deep faith and has had many prayer breakfasts with Senator Santorum. Again and again, we are told that someone who is deeply religious cannot be a bad person, and that a...
PBS, Recruiting for Islam
What would be the best way to convert lots of Americans to Islam? Forget print, go to film. Put together a handsome documentary with an original musical score that presents Islam's prophet Muhammad in the most glowing manner, indeed, as a model of perfection. Round up...
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