ArcaMax

A few weeks ago, from an international and domestic-U.S. public relations standpoint, Israel might have been able to bring its war in Gaza in for a hard landing. Now it has painted itself into a corner.

Gaza has been destroyed. By this time next year, so will Israel -- not its physical plant, but its current status as a privileged, funded, ...Read more

As a single mom, I've spent Christmas alone while my daughter visited with her father's family for the holiday. I've also celebrated Christmas morning as a blended family with my daughter, new husband and stepdaughter. Holidays can be challenging with so many moving parts and so many players who have emotional stakes in the day. I'm here to tell...Read more

However you vote, whichever lives you think matter, you may be forgiven for asking one question.

When former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was stabbed 22 times in prison, did he say to his attacker, "I can't breathe"?

The "I can't breathe" quote was supposedly uttered by George Floyd, the criminally inclined Black man Chauvin ...Read more

What's the difference between equivocating and just avoiding the question?

Are the Jews calling the shots?

It was a fiery four-hour hearing, with short-answer questions: genocide of Jews?

Sounds easy. Genocide of Jews -- are you for it or against it? Not one of those things where there are two perfectly reasonable sides. What's the trick? ...Read more

There's only one Nebraska. Reminders of its uniqueness appeared in the obituaries of Charlie Munger, who for decades served as the vice chairman at Berkshire Hathaway.

The international press has long been fascinated by this $780 billion holding company that was made in Omaha and stayed in Omaha. Its founder, Warren Buffett, and Munger grew ...Read more

Dubai, UAE -- More than 100,000 people have descended on the United Nations climate summit here in Dubai, making it the largest ever. The goal of COP28, the 28th annual Conference of Parties to the climate negotiations, is to halt catastrophic climate change. As the impacts of the climate emergency become increasingly frequent and destructive --...Read more

Nikki Haley is the dark horse in the Republican presidential race that Democrats should watch closely as she gains ground by the day, hair flying with the wind.

Brace for a "Hail Nikki" surge while former President Donald Trump's troubles with the law mount and his grip on reality loosens and leads to more demagogic rants. Many fear for the ...Read more

According to an old saying, "You can't squeeze blood from a turnip." True. But that raises this question: Who would even try squeezing blood from a turnip?

Well, metaphorically speaking, if "blood" means profit, and "turnips" are customers, airlines are eager to apply the squeeze. As are banks, credit card outfits, cable TV and internet ...Read more

In the eight weeks since 3,000 Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and slaughtered 1,200 Israelis and mutilated 5,800 others, it's become clear that Hamas' purpose was not merely genocidal. As interrogated Hamas gunmen have admitted, and as video from the gunmen themselves demonstrates, Hamas had the specific purpose of raping Israeli women before...Read more

"Medical Freedom" crusaders are trying to end vaccination requirements for schoolchildren. Places where they succeed, epidemiologists warn, will, for starters, become overrun with measles, a disease that was virtually eliminated thanks to vaccines.

Measles used to kill up to 500 people a year, while polio left more than 15,000 paralyzed. ...Read more

Recently, the National Institute of Justice -- the research arm of the Department of Justice -- put out a call for researchers to participate in what they called the "Recidivism Forecasting Challenge." The challenge was designed to use information about people on parole in Georgia to "improve the ability to forecast recidivism using person-and...Read more

It took three votes -- and a scathing, 56-page report from the House Ethics Committee -- to convince the requisite two-thirds majority necessary to expel a pathological liar from the House of Representatives. The question is not whether he deserved to be expelled, but what took so long.

He has been charged with multiple felonies, including ...Read more

In the past month I've written about hospice care for the homeless, read a novel centered around a nursing home during COVID lockdown and read a memoir written by a neurosurgeon as he was dying from cancer.

What did all three of these have in common? Death, yes. But there was something more. They each shined a light on the importance of knowing...Read more

It is useful when you feel stumped to step back and ask yourself: What if I were coming to this person/situation/decision fresh, without precedents or historical baggage?

Inertia is a powerful and insidious force. How many times, working in an office, when you ask why something is done a certain way, do you get the circular answer that it's ...Read more

You may have noticed in recent weeks that alarming headlines about inflation -- specifically, those ubiquitous stories about the cost of gasoline, or eggs, or other household goods -- have vanished. Media outlets no longer feature those fearsome charts with arrows zooming skyward, or video loops displaying the latest eye-popping gas station ...Read more

Buddha says don't fight back. Christ says the same thing. Both are widely ignored.

In Israel, on the border with what may or may not be Palestine, there is red war and yellow flames and humanitarian aid because war requires the camouflage of charity.

Israelis have been killed. Palestinians have been killed. Israelis have been taken hostage. ...Read more