TIME Magazine

Does Osama bin Laden Still Matter?

Ron Tang — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 05:57:00 -0400

Does Osama bin Laden matter anymore? You could be forgiven for thinking he doesn't. In recent months, an impressive cast of terrorism experts and counterterrorism officials around the world has coalesced around the notion that al-Qaeda's leader is no longer an active threat to the West. They point out that he has not been able to strike on U.S. soil since 9/11 or in Europe since the London bombings three summers ago. In Iraq, his most successful franchise operation is on the ropes. Across the Muslim world, opinion polls suggest his popularity has faded, and many of his early supporters… more

Eric Liu in TIME | 'The New Patriotism'

Communications — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 07:04:00 -0400

New America in the News:
...What we need going forward is third-way patriotism, a new patriotism that blends the faith of our fathers with, as Lincoln said, the unfinished work remaining before us. That new patriotism, as Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer write in The True Patriot, means "appreciating not only what is great about our country but also what it takes to create and sustain greatness..." LINK

Tomás Jiménez in TIME | 'Recession May Be Driving Off Illegals'

Communications — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 05:33:00 -0400

New America in the News:

...Tomás Jiménez, a fellow at the New America Foundation, says that the vast majority of municipalities around the country haven't enacted any anti-immigration laws or seen any raids. So it's unlikely that most workers are leaving out of fear. "This happens a lot," he says. "DHS and border patrol taking credit for things that are actually driven by other forces."

Jiménez worries that the government will just pour more recession dollars into immigration raids and border enforcement at a time when it can least afford it... LINK

Daniel Levy in TIME Magazine | "Hamas Hysteria"

Communications — Thu, 15 May 2008 09:13:00 -0400

New America in the News:
Full article

. . . "If you're not talking to everyone, you're going to be Chalabied every time," says Daniel Levy, an Israeli who has negotiated extensively with Palestinians, referring to Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi who helped mislead the U.S. into war with Iraq. . .

Baitullah Mehsud

Ron Tang — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 03:49:00 -0400

For Pakistanis, the Dec. 27 assassination of Benazir Bhutto was the J.F.K. murder and 9/11 rolled into one, plunging the nation into days of mourning and setting off riots across the country. It was a stunning victory for Pakistan's militants, who have increasingly turned their firepower against the state, conducting more than 50 suicide attacks in 2007 alone.

The government quickly fingered Baitullah Mehsud as the mastermind of the Bhutto assassination; he had previously threatened to kill her. The details of Mehsud's biography are sketchy, as he shuns publicity. He is known to be in his mid-30s and to lead thousands… more

The Black-Brown Divide

Ron Tang — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

I imagine he said it as if he were confessing a deep, dark secret. And, of course (wink, wink), he had no idea his little confession would make the rounds. But when Sergio Bendixen, Hillary Clinton's pollster and resident Latino expert, told the New Yorker after her win in New Hampshire that "the Hispanic voter -- and I want to say this very carefully -- has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates," he started a firestorm of innuendo that has begun to shape how the media are covering the race for the Democratic presiden-tial… more

Michael Calabrese in TIME | 'Will Google Go Mobile?'

Communications — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 18:30:00 -0500

New America in the News:

Will Google Go Mobile? (TIME Magazine)

...The speed of innovation depends on whether a newcomer like Google or Qualcomm, both of which are registered bidders, has the money and the will to acquire enough licenses to break into the wireless game and force the telecom companies to break old habits. Sure Google has the cash, but do they really want to get in the labor-intensive business of broadband networks? Already, startup Frontline Wireless, a venture supported by a group of Silicon Valley investors, has gone belly up, unable to secure funding for its intended bid on the discounted public-private D block of the 700 MHz spectrum that will share airwaves with public-safety responders.

"I don't expect that the auction will result in a major new market entrant," says Michael Calabrese, director of the wireless future program at the New America Foundation, a Washington, D.C. think tank. "I think Verizon will end up bidding more because it is worth more to them to keep out a new entrant." more

TIME Magazine Quotes Sara Mead on Boys, Achievement

Communications — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 11:59:00 -0400

New America in the News:
"I don't think anyone will deny that girls are academically superior as a group. Girls are more academically powerful. They make the grades, they run the student activities, they are the valedictorians..."

Is it bad that more boys are in special education, or should we be pleased that they are getting extra help from specially trained teachers? And haven't boys always tended to be more restless than girls under the discipline of high school and more likely to wind up in jail? A growing congregation of writers have begun to argue that the trouble with boys is mostly a myth. Sara Mead is one; she was until recently a senior policy analyst at Education Sector, a Washington think tank largely funded by the Gates Foundation. Intrigued by the wave of books and articles about failing boys, Mead crunched some numbers, focusing narrowly on the question of school performance. The former Clinton Administration official concluded that "with a few exceptions, American boys are scoring higher and achieving more than they ever have before."

In particular, Mead decided that boys from middle- and upper-income families--especially white families--are doing just fine. "The biggest issue is not a gender gap. It is these gaps for minority and disadvantaged boys," she told me recently in the think tank's conference room. Boys overall are holding their own or even improving on standardized tests, she said; they're just not improving as quickly as girls. And their total numbers in college are rising, albeit not as sharply as the numbers of girls. To Mead, a good-news story about the achievements of girls and young women has been turned into a bad-news story about laggard boys and young men...

For the complete article, please visit the TIME Magazine website.

Maya MacGuineas in TIME Magazine on Productive Aging

Communications — Thu, 10 May 2007 12:35:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Making the most of our retirement-age population has become a hot issue in Washington, where for the past 75 years federal policy has been designed around easing folks who are past 50 out of the workforce rather than enticing them to stay in it. If you're reaching that age now, however, you're headed for a whole new reality.

Everyone knows the fiscal pickle we're in: baby boomers are about to retire and tap Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits. To make good on the promises of these programs, the government may have to go much deeper into debt or increase the tax burden up to twofold on those still working. The math is suffocating. Something has to give.

Inside the Beltway, one answer is increasingly heard: let's get a continuing economic contribution from folks after their primary career has ended and before they start draining the system's pension and health-care assets. That's bad news if you're looking forward to a kick-up-your-heels early retirement; the financial and cultural support for a purely leisure-filled later life is drying up. But if you crave opportunities for a flexible job that you will enjoy or volunteer work that makes use of your skills and speaks to your heart, then what's good for the federal budget may be good for you too.

The whole idea of productive aging--getting an economic return on the accumulated knowledge and skills of what might be called the young old--has political steam and will probably surface on the presidential trail next year. "There are candidates on both sides giving this a lot of thought," says Maya MacGuineas, fiscal-policy director at the New America Foundation, a think tank that promotes new ideas...

For the complete article, please visit the TIME Magazine website.

TIME Magazine Quotes Terry Tamminen on Thwarting Climate Change

Communications — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 18:09:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Arnold Schwarzenegger may have signed the world's toughest anti-global-warming law, but it is Democrat Terry Tamminen, his environmental adviser, who is emerging as the state's real Terminator, winning industry support and the endorsement of a Republican Governor for a mandate to reduce the state's emissions 80% by 2050.

But thwarting climate change isn't a solo effort. Tamminen left his official post to build a national response to global warming one state at a time. "I am trying to Johnny Appleseed what California has done," Tamminen says. His goal is to create a de facto national climate plan out of individual efforts in the 50 states. "He is crisscrossing the country and spreading the word," says Karl Hausker, deputy director of the Center for Climate Strategies. "Terry gets state leaders interested in doing this..." Nineteen states have developed or are developing aggressive climate plans based on the work of Hausker's group and Tamminen. So much progress is being made at the state and regional level, Tamminen says, that "by the time that there is a new Administration in the White House, a majority of Americans will live in states with a meaningful plan that deals with the climate-change issue."

For the complete article, please visit the TIME Magazine website.