Last week I attended a congressional briefing in the Senate on the topic of family planning. The briefing, called “Evidence and Action: Why Family Planning is a Best Buy in Global Development,” was organized by... Read More

Is faith a good thing? In past columns, I have argued that we must outgrow our reliance on faith: that despite its reputation as a virtue, it is actually an obstacle to moral progress. In... Read More

This week I attended a symposium at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. that dealt with the issue of religious freedom in America, a topic that has received a lot of attention as of late from... Read More

You’ve probably heard that Ohio ultra-conservative Senator Rob Portman has changed his position and now supports same-gender marriage—because, he says, his son is gay. That’s great for progressives. But… Wanting equal rights for your son... Read More

Disasters that are mainly our own fault should certainly result in humility, if not plenty of humiliation. Regrettably, the all too usual response to many man-made disasters is denial, with or without a frantic search... Read More

Lessons in humility ought to be learned from disasters, especially those that involve the possibility or certainty of killing us. Given the history and habits of Homo sapiens, amazingly enough some of these disasters are... Read More

I was going to name this article "Disaster, Part One" but on careful, that is, embarrassed consideration, I decided that I should rename. After all, there’s nothing like disaster to make us humans feel humble,... Read More