The Realist Idealist

Just above Ben Stein’s column in yesterday’s Sunday Times (telling us that things really aren’t that bad in our nation’s economy …Bueller? Bueller? …anyone?) was a piece by Alan Blinder with the title “A Modest Proposal: Eco Friendly Stimulus”

The gist of Blinder’s proposal can be boiled down to providing “cash” to low-income Americans for their [...]

[Read more →]

“The current race is to see who will control renewable energy technologies, and we are in the race,” Algerian Energy Minister Chakib Khelil told reporters. “We have the human and financial resources, and we have the will.”
Minister Khelil’s statement was made in the recent announcement that Algeria is undertaking a massive initiative to generate enough [...]

[Read more →]

Why and how have banks made half-million dollar loans to people without jobs or income?
In keeping with the recent Realist Idealist theme of sharing information that has been incredibly useful in my understanding of the world, its history, its processes, and how things have unfolded (so that we can do something about it [...]

[Read more →]

Making good things (actually) happen is hard.
On any large scale, trying to make the world a bit better place is messy and complicated and almost always full of the same back-room shenanigans chronicled throughout the political, business, and tech sectors, but with one not-so-small difference: everyone involved acts like it’s not, and almost no one [...]

[Read more →]

Anyone who saw my twitter feed last night could likely recognize how frustrated I was with the democratic debate on ABC between Obama and Clinton (through mostly not-worth-reading sarcasm).
Today my friend Adam Green at MoveOn.org sent this email to their members, and though I don’t support all petitions, their suggested petition is the only kind [...]

[Read more →]

I opened the Times homepage this morning to find this article headlining:
Early Dazzle, Then Tough Times for Governor
That Deval Patrick (the nation’s second black governor) has had a rough go of it in the last year is not new news. That his latest bill was defeated yesterday may be “new” news, but it’s certainly [...]

[Read more →]

That David Brooks would write an article about social entrepreneurship and more or less delineate the exact path that many of my friends have taken in recent years (graduate from top 20 US university –> Year of Service program like TfA –> grad school –> software/business/corporation –> launch social enterprise) was surprising to me.
NYT: Thoroughly [...]

[Read more →]

One of my favorite organizations of the last six months is Avaaz.org - who I learned of through one of their staff, Ben Wikler, based here in DC.  They are essentially the MoveOn.org for international issues.
So far this week Avaaz has amassed over 450,000 signatures in a petition to Chinese president Hu Jintao that [...]

[Read more →]

Tibet is a part of the world I’ve never been to, but one that I’m endlessly fascinated by, supportive of, and feel oddly connected to as it continues to come up through friends and events.
That said, today’s events in and around Tibet have shocked me.
If you haven’t yet seen what’s going on, here is an [...]

[Read more →]

After being on the road for a week or more I always return home (wherever that may be in a given year) with a wealth of new ideas on my mind.  It’s a timeless tradition for the weary traveler as the myriad airports and jets provide plenty of time (usually more than we’d like) for [...]

[Read more →]