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E.J. Dionne
$29.95
By Gary Giddins and Scott DeVeaux
$26.37
$22
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AP/Baz Ratner
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By Robert Scheer — Sorry to be such a nudge, but as I write this before heading off to yet another in a long lifetime of Seders, I still can’t get my head wrapped around this business of the plagues.
Posted on Mar 25, 2013
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Screenshot from "It's a Wonderful Life"
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By Robert Reich — Every year about now I watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” again to remind myself what Frank Capra understood about America—its essential decency and common sense.
Posted on Dec 23, 2012
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Steve Rhodes (CC-BY)
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By Nora Eisenberg —
This season, don’t look to bells on bobtails to make your spirits bright. Kindle the mood with dreams and songs of Occupation, sung to the tune of “Jingle Bells.”
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imdb.com
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By Richard Schickel — We exist today in a climate of movie extremes—extreme action, extreme comedy. There are not many mild, agreeable pictures that take place in pleasant surroundings and set people we can identify with to dealing with issues that at sometime or other all of us will have to engage.
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Flickr / Rrrrred (CC-BY)
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Valentine’s Day naysayers now have another reason to disdain the day: It’s depleting Kenya’s water supply. Specifically, the cultivation of roses in the African nation for holiday sales in Europe is taking a toll on the local ecosystem.
Posted on Feb 14, 2011
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Mr. Fish / Truthdig
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By Mr. Fish — I was 14 years old and it was just after dinner on the last day of summer vacation in the Alabama portion of Southern Jersey, where the only black people I ever saw were sunburned Italians.
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The holiday 2010 season is destined to go down in wintry infamy for countless would-be travelers, and even residents just trying to get around already in New York City. Here’s a few of them giving their appraisal of the snowy situation in the Big Apple on Tuesday.
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cnn.com
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The weather calmed down in California on Friday, but things are about to get lively on the other side of the country, as heavy rainfall and snow are expected to hit the East Coast within hours, causing air travel cancellations just in time for Christmas.
Posted on Dec 24, 2010
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The placebo effect even if you know it’s a placebo, the conglomerate approval of the Comcast-NBC merger, and the introduction of Google Body. These discoveries and more after the jump.
Posted on Dec 24, 2010
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After a day of overindulgence in food and drink, many Americans observe the nutty consumerist tradition known as Black Friday around the country. Here’s a montage of some of the most frightening stampedes in recent history.
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AP / John Bazemore
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Americans looking to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day in a way that honored his legacy of activism and service got to work on Monday, whether by focusing on their local communities’ needs or going global to help the Haiti earthquake relief effort and other current causes.
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Is yet another Christmas album from a recording artist who just might be phoning it in really necessary? Bob Dylan apparently thought so. He’s released his own holiday collection, “Christmas in the Heart,” from which this odd little polka number—and its even stranger accompanying video—has sprung.
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By Ellen Goodman — As a society, and as individuals, we are woefully unprepared for aging, even when it’s our parents. About 34 million Americans provide at least some of the care for frail, aging family members, and yet we don’t see it as a normal, predictable part of the life cycle.
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President Barack Obama draws upon the traditions and meanings behind “two very different holidays”—Passover and Easter—as his jumping-off point for his weekly address about the state of the country and the world ... and about his time rubbing elbows with other world leaders during the past week.
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AP photo / Marcio Jose Sanchez
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Having been resoundingly honored for his onscreen portrayal of Harvey Milk, Sean Penn is now calling for a high honor for Milk, asking for an official “Harvey Milk Day” in California to commemorate the slain San Francisco politician and gay rights activist.
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By Marie Cocco — Two weeks ago I wrote that this was going to be a Wal-Mart Christmas. I could not have anticipated the most macabre manifestation of the syndrome: the death of a Wal-Mart worker who was trampled by a mob of early shoppers Friday on Long Island.
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foreclosurewearhouse.com
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Starting on Nov. 26, mortgage finance mega-firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will take a time out from foreclosures and evictions until Jan. 9—a welcome holiday break for struggling homeowners that hopefully will catch on among other corporate players in the mortgage market.
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John McCain told a Memphis crowd gathered in memory of the assassination of Martin Luther King that “I was wrong” to oppose a national holiday for Dr. King, but that didn’t stop some in the crowd from heckling the would-be president.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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Stock markets across the world Monday suffered the worst losses since Sept. 11, 2001. The drop prompted analysts to theorize that investors have major doubts about the ability of the proposed stimulus package to mend the American economy.
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A gunman who opened fire at the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Neb., Wednesday afternoon turned his gun on himself after killing eight people and wounding nine others, according to local authorities. At a news briefing following the shooting at the Von Maur department store, Sgt. Teresa Negron of the Omaha Police Department said the person believed to be the gunman was dead and his identity had not yet been confirmed.
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By Marie Cocco — The turkey may share the table with lasagna or guacamole or Asian-style rice bowls. Welcome to America, Pilgrim.
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AP photo / Richard Drew
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Thursday was not a good day on Wall Street, with the Dow dropping over 362 points to close at 13,567.87. Meanwhile, the S&P 500, like the Dow, fell 2.6 percent, and the Nasdaq also took a hit, dipping 2.25 percent by day’s end.
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By Eugene Robinson — You might have thought that now isn’t the most opportune time for the elected leaders of both the United States and Iraq to pack up and head to the beach, ranch or villa for a nice, long vacation. Silly you.
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Harvard.edu
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In 1870, Julia Ward Howe responded to the horrors of the Civil War by issuing her “Mother’s Day Proclamation,” calling on women around the world to rise up and oppose war in all its forms. It would be decades before Americans officially began celebrating Mother’s Day, and much of the original spirit of the proclamation has since been lost.
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By Andy Borowitz — In a survey designed to determine who is naughty and who is nice, the naughty outnumbered the nice by a whopping 3-to-1 margin, the University of Minnesota revealed today.
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The religious right demands that we focus on Jesus this holiday season. Okay, but what do we really know about him? We turn to a religious scholar to find out. The Rev. Madison Shockley is a minister of the United Church of Christ in Carlsbad, Calif. and a regular commentator on religion, race, politics and popular culture.
Posted on Jan 23, 2006
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By Dr. Roger Gould — If you’re stressed out by the holiday season, blame it on your family—and then change.
“It’s the most wonderful time of the year. . . .”
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