The most obvious lesson of the 2006 elections, in which the Democratic Party became the majority party in both houses of Congress, is that the election was a referendum on the leadership of President George W. Bush. The president was quick to accept the verdict of the voters, announcing the followin

With the exception of his appearance before his old faculty at the University of Regensburg, Pope Benedict XVI’s travels have been quiet affairs. Even a trip to Spain last July, which threatened to erupt into controversy over policy differences with that country’s Socialist government, t

Abu Ghraib at HomeThe now infamous photo of an Abu Ghraib detainee crouching in terror before a snarling dog appalled people around the world. But the same thing is happening in prisons in five U.S. states. Jamie Fellner, director of the Human Rights Watch prison program, points out in an October re

Antipersonnel landmines that tear bodies apart are a problem now resolved, right? Wrong. Although much progress has been made over the past decades in slowing their production and use, as well as in demining areas where they still represent a threat to farmers, children, refugees and civilians in ge

Going Down to the SeaSaving deep-sea ecosystems from destructive bottom trawling is among the issues to be considered in November by the United Nations General Assembly. The marine biologist Sylvia Earle, executive director of Conservation International’s global marine division, has said that

Checks and BalancesTypically, Americans think of governmental checks and balances as the interplay among the executive, legislative and judicial branches. But when all three branches lean toward the same political party and have the ideological cohesion to override minority views (as has been the ca

Since Americans pay more for health insurance and health care than do people in most other highly developed countries, it is reasonable to ask: Are we getting our money’s worth, if value is measured by a long and presumably healthy life? Are our national health expenditures a good investment,

Justice in the Rift ValleyThose with long memories, as well as admirers of Isak Dinesen’s writings, may recall the Honorable Hugh Cholmondeley, the third Baron Delamere, who was one of the original white settlers of British East Africa in the 1900’s. Lord Delamere, and later his family,

Among the great spirituals created by the African-American churches in the South is one that compares death to a train. The same train, it says, that called for my father and my mother and my brother is whistling at the station for me. This train makes only one-way trips, for it is traveling to the

As we approach the November midterm Congressional elections, most of official Washington has gone into recess. In the final weeks of campaigning, both the White House and the Congress have turned their attention from policy to politics. Those who take an idealistic view of the democratic process mig