NEWS
By DAVID ZURAWIK | September 27, 2009
Committing yourself for 12 hours to any TV production is a big deal. But before you decide you don't have the time for Ken Burns' new multipart documentary, "The National Parks: America's Best Idea," consider just giving it a 30-minute tryout. Watch the first half-hour tonight on PBS, and I bet you will become hooked on one of the best and most rewarding viewing experiences of the TV year. This is a film with both beauty and brains - it is gorgeous to look at, it will make you think and possibly even stir your soul.
NEWS
By Mark Magnier | December 2, 2008
MUMBAI, India - With a bit of pluck, even if was not always heartfelt, a touch of defiance and a dose of the city's famous resilience, Mumbai dusted itself off yesterday from last week's terrorist attack and headed back to work. The trains were reasonably packed, traffic was beginning to resemble its normally chaotic self and shoppers eased back into the stores, even if many still were not buying much. "Sure I'm scared," said Roshan Tengra, a housewife, as she headed into a Bank of India branch a few blocks from the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel where the most protracted militant attack occurred.
NEWS
August 5, 2008
For the young women who dance in bars and clubs on The Block, Baltimore's adult entertainment district, life is a few days or weeks of cheap thrills, then years of drug addiction, abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, emotional torment and early death. Few newcomers realize the future that awaits them. As The Sun's Jonathan Bor reported last week in an article about the health risks faced by prostitutes, their odds of escaping it are vanishingly small. Mr. Bor's story focused on city public health workers' efforts to help dancers on The Block avoid HIV infection by giving them free condoms and clean needles.
NEWS
By David P. Barash | July 24, 2008
"My dear, let us hope that it isn't true!" the wife of the bishop of Worcester is reputed to have exclaimed 150 years ago, on hearing that human beings might be descended from apes. "But if it is true, let us hope that it doesn't become widely known!" When it comes to sociobiology - better known these days as "evolutionary psychology" - the bishop's wife has modern counterparts: The religious right and the secular and supposedly scientific left are remarkably on the same page, both sides inclined to dispute or misrepresent the relevance of evolution to human beings.
NEWS
By Dinesh D'Souza | October 28, 2007
RANCHO SANTE FE, Calif. -- Religion has faced formidable foes in its history. But atheism hasn't generally been one of them - until today. A recent string of best-selling books has put believers of all stripes on the defensive. Religion, say authors such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens, is an unreasonable form of blind faith, often leading to fanaticism and violence. Reason and science, they contend, are the only proper foundations for forming opinions and understanding the universe.
NEWS
By Larry Williams | April 15, 2007
Kurt Vonnegut, the gentle humanist who challenged Americans to be true to themselves and mistrust technology, wealth and the arrogance of power, died last week, possibly with a bemused appreciation of the fact that all of the ugliest aspects of popular culture he challenged for more than half a century appeared to be thriving. The author of 19 novels and an array of plays and short stories, he struggled to make a living as a writer of science fiction until the success in 1969 of Slaughterhouse-Five, a fictional treatment of his survival as a prisoner of war during the tragic and senseless Allied bombing of Dresden late in World War II. An estimated 135,000 people died in the Dresden firestorm.
NEWS
By MARY CAROLE MCCAULEY | August 20, 2006
I BOUGHT A CAR RECENTLY -- A 2004 Mini Cooper -- and I'm besotted with it. It is yellow with a white roof, and each night, when I get home from work, I obsessively wash away all the debris that has accumulated during the day. Then I park it in the garage and pat it on its hood before saying goodnight. Not only is this behavior ridiculous, it is completely out of character. I've always thought of cars essentially as transportation, demonstrated by my previous ride, a beat-up, rusting 1990 Toyota Camry with 167,000 miles.
NEWS
By CHICAGO TRIBUNE | April 24, 2006
Only one animal has chosen to be our ally and our friend. When that dog decides to bond to us, that's eternal. It's never going to change. ... Human beings have failed dogs constantly. I've never heard of a dog failing a human being." - ROBERT LIVAS, Will County, Ill., circuit judge, as he sentenced a man to 15 months in prison for killing a puppy
NEWS
May 3, 2005
HE WASN'T a fiery orator, litigator or politician, but Kenneth B. Clark, the psychologist, educator and longtime student of race relations, played a key role in America's civil rights fight. And almost until his death this week at the age of 90, he was a fierce force for racial integration in education and, by extension, American life and society. He enjoyed a distinguished career in New York academic circles, as a professor at City College and as the first black member of the New York State Board of Regents, trying to set high academic standards and remove achievement gaps among students long before the national trend.
NEWS
February 1, 2004
On January 7, 2004, GREGORY ALLEN ELIZONDO.Friends and fami ly will gather on Sunday, February 8, 6 P.M. at the Peabody Court Hotel to remember this most wonderful of human beings in a Celebration of Life. Inquiries please call (410) 962-7074.