“Children may not understand political alliances or intellectual argumentation, but they surely understand rubber bands and fistfights.”--Steven Pinker, from The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature (Viking, 2007). Sometimes a cigar is just... Read More

Gene Nichol came to the Presidency of the College of William and Mary with all the populist flair of Willie Stark in Robert Penn Warren's classic novel, All the Kings Men. He left the way... Read More

The great humanist lion, Paul Kurtz, was honored by the American Humanist Association on Saturday, June 9, 2007, at its annual conference in Portland, Oregon. The following is adapted from his speech in acceptance of... Read More

Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany in January, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated as president of the United States in March, Mohandas Gandhi carried out a hunger strike in May on behalf of the... Read More

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH has proved to be as much of a disaster on foreign affairs as on domestic issues. More, if possible. And not just on Iraq. On many other issues, including global warming,... Read More

THE DRAMA THE ASSASSINATION of the great Pakistani political figure Benazir Bhutto last December seemed to emerge as a tailor-made story for the American media to fill the usual post-Christmas news void. The main character... Read More

ON THE MORNING of December 7, 2007, Christopher Campbell walked into his English Honors class at Parker High School, prepared to tear out pages of the Bible. Earlier that week his teacher had taped aphorisms... Read More