The Realist Idealist

…for anyone who stops by the site tomorrow.
Can’t wait to resume blogging after the madness of the election ends.  For those that I haven’t talked to, or can’t tell from my Twitter feed to the right, I’m in North Carolina for the final days of the campaign trying to turn out a victory for Kay [...]

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“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 [...]

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I just finished Walter Isaacson’s biography of Benjamin Franklin this weekend, and without knowing exactly how to say this, I’ll simply say that I was completely inspired.  “Inspired” is quite an understatement actually.  I found myself at times with chills running through my body as Isaacson described the various successes and challenges Franklin faced throughout [...]

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This six part series by Richard Behar of Fast Company entitled “China in Africa” is the single best piece of investigative journalism I’ve read in months. Maybe years. Maybe ever.

Behar breaks down and brilliantly weaves the geo-political, business, governmental, community, historical, and personality issues that plague a handful of resource-rich countries across the sub-Saharan [...]

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…as very well she should be.
Back in May, Tom Brokaw was quoted as saying Jon Stewart’s “role is important” in the media, and if for no other reason than more young people get their “news” through the Daily Show than any other source, he’d be right. The funny thing (no pun intended) is just [...]

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My $600 Bush-proffered economic stimulus hit my bank account a couple weeks ago and ever since I’ve been trying to figure out how to spend it.  Actually, “give” it, is probably a better way to think about it.
A quick run through of my living room will reveal a glaring emptiness (actually there are two large [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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The more you dig into the actions of the Chinese against Tibet, the more cold and systematic their cultural genocide begins to appear.  Indeed “cold and systematic” is exactly what genocide is in the first place.  (Just ask the Rwandans whose recognized genocide took place in 1994, but which had indicators and events happening as [...]

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