The graduation season is finally over. All over the country young people have completed their studies and received the diplomas that, they hope, will unlock a future of their choosing. In Britain the ritual of graduation involves the donning of graduation hoods and gowns (hired at great expense for

No one would choose to live without friends, even if he had all other goods. Rich people and holders of powerful positions seem to need friends…. In poverty also, and in other misfortunes, people think friends are the only refuge. —Aristotle, NicomacheanEthics, Book VII Having heard so m

When will the United States draw down its troops occupying Iraq? In the political showdown between the president and the Congress over the war in Iraq, attention has focused on legislating a specific timetable for troop withdrawal. This issue will be revisited in September, when debate over war fund

Nearly 30 years have passed since I very innocently asked one of my parish priests, the Rev. Maurice Burke, why Northern Ireland was a killing zone. I was a young reporter at the time, assigned to write a story about this foreign place that, frankly, meant very little to me. I knew one of my grandparents had been born in Ireland, but beyond that, I knew nothing besides the story of St. Patrick and the snakes.

Global politics can sometimes have unexpected, and very local, side effects. I guess it’s a bit like the proverbial butterfly flapping its wings in the Indian Ocean and causing a tornado in Kentucky. Events that seem remote and impersonal can cause tidal waves in the lives of very small people.

Jesús is a 22-year-old Colombian who was forced from his home by the decades-old civil war. He and others in his village were captured by the paramilitaries in 2005. They were massed into a forced death march. At gunpoint, they were made to dig graves for the dead. Jesús said, I never knew when I