Author: Lance Garrison
Humans are a remarkably ambitious species. We came to the edge of lands we could safely chart and built ships that would carry us to the unknown. When travel by water and land no longer suited us, we took to the skies. After journeying among the clouds could not sate our spirit, we turned our hearts to the stars.But whatever it is about us that makes it so easy for us to dream, to build, to act, makes it hard for us to comprehend the consequences of those acts. We edit and shift our perception to put things in the…
To the Editor:Re “Nonprofit Hospitals Are Focused More on Dollars Than on People,” by Amol S. Navathe (Opinion guest essay, Dec. 4):Dr. Navathe says nonprofit hospital boards need to focus on mission, communities and patients more than profits, “replace some financially minded members with community-minded ones,” and become more accountable to the I.R.S. and local governments.His message also applies to nonprofit colleges/universities, many of which operate hospitals. These largest and most influential public charities will pay greater attention to those who consume and provide their services when their boards increase their representation of women and people of color to more…
In 1969, the federal government announced that it would hand out millions of dollars in subsidies to companies willing to try something new: building houses in factories.Then as now, America was in the throes of a housing crisis. There weren’t enough places to live. Mass production provided Americans with abundant and cheap food, clothing, cars and other staples of material life. But houses were still hammered together by hand, on site. The federal initiative, Operation Breakthrough, aimed to drive up the production of housing — and to drive down the cost — by dragging the building industry into the 20th…
Henry Kissinger was the pre-eminent statesman of post-World War II America. He was not just a policymaker, he was a strategist who thought about the world in conceptual terms and drew on a nuanced understanding of history and geopolitics to guide U.S. statecraft. Mr. Kissinger adhered to a realist intellectual framework that produced enormous strategic payoffs, enabling the United States to pivot from a failing war in Vietnam to a much more limited and restrained version of the Cold War that promoted international stability and restored domestic consensus.In the aftermath of Mr. Kissinger’s recent death, a chorus of critics has…
My happiest Christmas memories take the form of snapshots, or the briefest of video clips, though in most cases no actual photographic documentation exists. Even when I study on them, even when I work in earnest to call them up again in some fuller form, they remain only flashes. Such memories exist entirely as fragments, freeze-frame likenesses of ephemeral joy:The held breath just before my husband pulls down the creaky attic ladder in the hallway outside our sons’ bedrooms. That midnight pause, year after year, as he listens for any stirring behind their closed doors.The Christmas tree we installed outside…
Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. This is our last conversation for the year, so let me first wish you and Dan a Merry Christmas.Gail: Thanks, Bret. And the best of course to you and Corinna and your kids.Bret: As much as I’ve loved our exchanges, I can’t say I’ve loved the year. From Donald Trump’s political resurrection, to Congress failing to come together to help Ukraine, to America’s premier university presidents being unable to say that calling for the genocide of Jews violates campus policies, to this latest ludicrous impeachment inquiry, to the clown show that made Kevin McCarthy speaker of…
On Dec. 13, an election worker named Ruby Freeman took the stand in a Georgia courtroom and told the story of how her world was turned upside down by Rudy Giuliani. Three Decembers earlier, Giuliani shared a routine surveillance video of Ms. Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, doing the routine yet vital work of counting 2020 presidential ballots at State Farm Arena in Atlanta.But Giuliani’s description of the video was anything but routine. He falsely claimed that the footage was evidence of vote fraud. In that moment, everything changed for Freeman. As she said in her testimony, “Giuliani just…
Many people were shocked when the Texas Supreme Court intervened recently to stop Kate Cox from getting an abortion in the state — an abortion needed to protect her health and future fertility after her fetus was diagnosed with a severe fetal anomaly in her second trimester. She ultimately traveled out of state to get the abortion she needed.As someone who has been studying state abortion definitions and exceptions in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s demise, I was not shocked.The Texas anti-abortion law that went into effect shortly after Roe was overturned was drafted to ban the care needed…
To the Editor:Re “Excellence at Yale Doubted as Nearly Everyone Gets A’s” (news article, Dec. 6):The recent article about grade inflation at Yale was quite interesting but underplayed the role that students play. Students are as responsible for grade inflation as are college professors.In the mid-2000s I taught a couple of journalism classes on new media at Brandeis. I had about 30 students in my classes, and only one really knew how to use the English language properly. I kept asking myself, “These kids want to go into journalism?” I have always believed that A’s should be awarded infrequently.However, after…
ISIS was one of the most brutal terrorist organizations in modern history. At its peak, it exercised control of territory the size of Britain, recruited tens of thousands of fighters and carried out or inspired attacks in over two dozen countries. It relied on a network of financiers to realize such global ambitions. But most of that network’s members have yet to face justice, and most ISIS victims have yet to receive any compensation for their losses.That is why we filed a federal lawsuit last week on behalf of more than 400 members of the Yazidi community, a religious minority…