Spare the rod, save the child
Preschool expulsions? It's not a joke. It's a tragedy. Harvard's Alvin Poussaint, one of the nation's pre-eminent child psychiatrists, drew audible gasps from an audience when he brought up the...
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Welfare reformed, poverty persists
Ten years have passed since President Bill Clinton signed a tough welfare-reform law. I feared the worst. It feels good to be wrong. The worst has not happened, but the...
Cosby’s call for understanding
Here's a scoop for you, America: Bill Cosby has a hard time getting his message out. "The media love to choose what they want to use," he said. "I can't...
What Bush should be saying
"It's all about Iraq." So said Dick Gregory, the comedian, civil rights activist and conspiracy theorist, when I asked why he thought President Bush decided to address the annual National...
TV’s bad-guy businessmen
Prime-time television is largely run by self-hating businesspeople. That's the implication of a recent study by Business & Media Institute, a conservative watchdog group, that finds America's most popular evening...
Crime makes a comeback
The last time I saw Chris Crowder, he was giving Bill Cosby a hard time for allegedly being too tough on poor black folks. Now Crowder, 44, is dead and...
Democrats need old-time religion
Sen. Barack Obama's call for Democrats to close the religion gap with Republicans shows a keen grasp of the obvious. As Obama noted in his much-talked-about speech last month at...
They’re illegal when we say so
Like any big city mayor, New York's Michael Bloomberg wants to crack down on lawbreakers, but it depends on which laws they break. In that spirit, Bloomberg gave a big...
Covering their own war
When the Abu Ghraib prison scandal broke in early 2004, thanks to leaked photos taken by some of our soldiers, I suggested then that cameras should be issued to all...
Socially isolated? You’re not alone
Just when you thought we had more than enough reasons to feel bad about ourselves, along comes a major, multiyear sociological survey to tell us that we Americans don't have...