Feed: The Blog - AggScore: 87.0

We discuss: The Fort Hood tragedy: the shooter's Muslim faith, military education and his work as a psychiatrist treating vets with PTSD. Also, unemployment rises: Do we need a bigger stimulus?

Last night, my phone rings. "Are you available to talk to the Speaker?" I feel like I'm being called on in law school to explain a case on one of those rare occasions where I had actually briefed it the day before.

Headlines recently declared "Sarah Palin's Speeches Were Ready but Never Seen -- Until Now." While Palin did not deliver her concession speech on election night, she did deliver most of it eight days later.

In 1974, when I was a graduate student in anthropology at Columbia University, I wanted to organize a discussion of universals. At the time, I was working for Margaret Mead as one of her assistants.

Democrats in Congress have just proudly signed a deal that allows a bunch of old men who have spent the better part of the last century avoiding their own sexual issues to dictate access to abortion services.

As a member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dogs, I believe this health care reform legislation is an opportunity our nation cannot afford to miss.

The stories and medical realities in some poor African Hospitals today are not so different from my first experiences in the Pediatric AIDS clinics at New York Hospital and Bellevue Hospital in the late 1980s.

"Maybe I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I can't for the life of me remember whether this is the bill I liked or the bill I despised," said Rep. Rand DeVane (D-OH). "I'm only human."

Some years ago, I went on a "positivity" course. My sister had died, my father had died, and I'd had cancer, and a broken heart, and I wasn't, quite frankly, feeling that cheerful.

Weak improvement incentives and strong bureaucracy in education have created a lousy marketplace for products and ideas. I'm betting on social learning platforms as a lever for improvement at scale.

tension is like a clogged drain, keeping what we don't need from dropping away, standing in the way of our potential. We need to dig out all the sludge.

We decided to replace the usual boring benefit dinner with something in keeping with my husband's spirit, a comedy show. Peter's old friends and colleagues volunteered to perform onstage in Los Angeles.

I was secretly pleased when the President outed Malia for getting a C on her science test. No matter what your ambitions are as a parent, you can't control how motivated your children are or what they achieve.

Among the emails I received Thursday were statements for some other groups warning against anti-Arab or anti-Muslim backlash. My advice to my staff was "don't go there." This is not about us right now.

To stem widespread Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, we are advised by listening to the veterans who served, survived, and suffer from the ravages of the condition. Their visions and lessons are invaluable.