Motivational speakers are fond of saying the Chinese word for “crisis,‿ combines the words “danger‿ and “opportunity.‿ Chinese speakers are tired of pointing out that this represents a poor understanding of their language. Linguistics aside, there is truth to the notion that both danger and opportunity are present in times of crisis. Small fishing communities […]

On the second day of Christmas, an undersea earthquake generated huge tsunamis. Inured as we have become to death in these recent years of terrorism and war, the number of dead across the Bay of Bengal is shocking. As I write this, the toll stands around 120,000, with predictions that the number could double through […]

I’m just back from Mexico. Not the Mexico of gleaming beaches and gringo-oriented resorts, but poor Mexico, where a decade of the North American Free Trade Agreement has taken a terrible toll. I visited Mexico City, the largest city in the world, with 25 million inhabitants. Mexico, the country, has 100 million inhabitants, so one […]

On January 1, I wrote in this space that 2004 would be the year that determines whether democracy survives in the U.S. With less than a month to go, three stories from the front section of today’s Washington Post give us an idea of where we stand. On the front page is a story about […]