Author: Lance Garrison

And Joe Biden needs to pick up where Bill Clinton left off.On Dec. 23, 2000, President Clinton presented a basket of ideas called the “Clinton parameters,” detailing how to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They are based on the principle of two nation-states for two peoples. Sadly, Clinton did not get to see the job finished, and added at the time, “I have taken this as far as I can.”Your job now, Joe, is to carry those ideas forward to forge two states for two peoples in one land. This is your time to make bold moves that will signal to…

Last fall I found myself at a dinner party that included a former Biden administration official and a Democratic donor, and the conversation turned, naturally, to President Biden’s age and his prospects for re-election. The ex-official said that from inside the White House, where people experience the policymaking process firsthand, Biden was overwhelmingly seen as an effective leader who should run again. The donor, on the other hand, saw Biden mostly at the fund-raisers where watching the president’s meandering speeches left him terrified about the upcoming campaign. The gulf in their perceptions, I think, speaks to the fact that Biden’s…

London has a jarring profusion of odd skyscrapers with funny names or nicknames. There are the Shard and the Scalpel, which are pretty elegant. The (mostly) well-liked Gherkin, which looks like a glass pickle. The wedge-shaped Cheese Grater. And the widely loathed Walkie-Talkie, a bulbous cartoon of a building that “looms thuggishly over its low-rise neighbors like a broad-shouldered banker in a cheap pinstriped suit,” to quote The Guardian.There’s an economic explanation for why London has so many skyscrapers that get up on their toes and say, “Look at me”: Developers hire star architects because doing so gives them a…

Until a few days ago, I was feeling fairly sanguine about America’s prospects. Economically, we’ve had a year of strong growth and plunging inflation — and aside from committed Republicans, who see no good, hear no good and speak no good when a Democrat is president, Americans appear to be recognizing this progress. It has seemed increasingly likely that the nation’s good sense would prevail and democracy would survive.But watching the frenzy over President Biden’s age, I am, for the first time, profoundly concerned about the nation’s future. It now seems entirely possible that within the next year, American democracy…

Feb. 12, 2024 – Clean. Natural.If the labels on your cosmetics and skin care products don’t include these descriptors, you’re not looking as great as you could and perhaps even jeopardizing your health.At least that’s the marketing message behind many “clean” and “natural” cosmetics and skin care products, from eyeliner to foundation to moisturizers and more.Both markets are booming, analysts say. The natural cosmetics market is estimated to reach $1.87 billion in the U.S. this year, up 7.1% from last year, according to Statista, a data platform. And Grand View Research says the U.S. natural skin care product market was $1.5 billion…

To the Editor:Re “Voters Wonder What’s Too Old for a President” (front page, Feb. 10):The polls show that a majority of the U.S. voting population thinks President Biden is too old to run for re-election in 2024.I am a thriving 81-year-old psychologist who has taught graduate psychology courses about aging. I believe that the assumption that he will be unfit to serve is based largely on our prejudices about aging.Men and women in their 80s are a strikingly diverse group. Aging is not just about decline. Older individuals can outperform younger people on tests of intelligence that are based on…

By Joyce Oen-Hsiao, as told to Keri Wiginton Joyce Oen-Hsiao, MD, FACC, director of clinical cardiology, Yale Medicine, New Haven, CT Right now, cholesterol treatment is more about finding ways to combine current cholesterol drugs a little bit differently and target treatment based on the person themselves. It’s not just standardized — giving everyone a statin right away. New research is about targeting which therapies are better for the elderly, which therapies are better for people with cancer, things like that.There’s a new drug called Nexletol, and it’s used for people with the highest risk. That’s people with genetic or familial…

We look to be headed for what could be the most unpopular sequel since “Home Alone 3”: Biden versus Trump 2.0.One question goes to the heart of shaping expectations for that matchup: Why does everyone think the economy stinks? The answer is critical, given that this election is probably going to be close and that a variety of research suggests that the incumbent party’s chances are better when the economy is going well. President Biden, trailing Donald Trump in early polls, will need all the economic tailwind he can get.Many commentators on the left have focused on a purported gap…

The dump trucks rattling with gravel were bad. Worse were the cement mixers lined up down the street, one of them stretched like a growling triceratops across our driveway. I had to plow over a flower bed to leave my own house.But it was the masonry drills that sent me over the edge. An entire day of screaming masonry drills will drive a person to madness.In the back of our family room, 50 feet from the construction site that was once our late neighbor’s home, stands the old plywood table where I habitually write. My husband built it for our…

There is forgetting and there is Forgetting. If you’re over the age of 40, you’ve most likely experienced the frustration of trying to grasp hold of that slippery word hovering on the tip of your tongue. Colloquially, this might be described as ‘forgetting,’ but most memory scientists would call this “retrieval failure,” meaning that the memory is there, but we just can’t pull it up when we need it. On the other hand, Forgetting (with a capital F) is when a memory is seemingly lost or gone altogether. Inattentively conflating the names of the leaders of two countries would fall…