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Ron Tang — Sun, 11 May 2008 05:52:00 -0400

Amid all the national debate over immigration, at least one firm consensus has emerged: Newcomers to the United States should learn English because it remains the lingua franca of our civic life. All three remaining presidential contenders say that the ability to speak English should be a requirement of U.S. citizenship. And last year, the immigrant governor of California told a convention of Latino journalists that immigrants should watch only English-language TV so they can understand the language and news of their home state. "You've got to turn off the Spanish television set," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger advised the… more

Bin Laden Or Bust

Ron Tang — Thu, 08 May 2008 10:29:00 -0400

Dude! What a rad plan! Kicking back over drinks at Bungalow 8, the hard-to-get-into Manhattan nightclub, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock hatched the idea of a humorous documentary and book about the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Your average auteur would wake up the next morning back in his Brooklyn crib, reach for the Advil and realize that searching for the largest mass murderer in U.S. history is about as funny as a pounding hangover.

But Spurlock is not an auteur easily deterred. He made his name with "Super Size Me," the 2004 documentary in which he ate nothing but Mickey D's, watched… more

Child Well-Being Index in Washington Post | For Children, a Better Beginning

Communications — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:32:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Washington Post | For Children, a Better Beginning

In a wide-ranging look at how children have fared in their first decade of life, a study to be released today offers a promising picture of American childhood: Sixth-graders feel safer at school.* Reading and math scores are up for 9-year-olds. More preschoolers are vaccinated. Fewer are poisoned by lead.

The analysis, which created a composite index of more than 25 key national indicators, reports an almost 10 percent boost in children's well-being from 1994 to 2006. This overall improvement comes in spite of two significant negative trends: increased rates of childhood obesity and low-birth-weight babies.

"There are some really encouraging signs of progress," said Ruby Takanishi, president of the nonprofit Foundation for Child Development, which funded the research. "I think it's important as a country . . . to see that there are things that parents can do, that government can do, that institutions can do, to make measurable differences for children." . . .

*The New America Foundation Workforce and Family Program convened an event for the release of the study by FCD. More information is linked here.

Big Pharma's Golden Eggs

Ron Tang — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 05:25:00 -0400

Once upon a time there was an industry called pharma that was interested in doing well and doing good. Run by doctors and chemists, drug companies employed battalions of researchers whose scientific efforts resulted by mid-century in a flood of life-saving drugs, including antibiotics, vaccines, tranquilizers, antihistamines and steroids. As George Merck, president of the company founded by his father, put it in 1950, "We try never to forget that medicine is for the people. It is not for the profits. The profits follow... "

And how. Today, of course, drug companies are hugely profitable enterprises and the darlings of both… more

Like the Wild, Wild West. Plus Al-Qaeda.

Ron Tang — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 07:34:00 -0400

Darra Adam Khel, a small burg in Pakistan's tribal areas, is the quintessential frontier town. Picture Wyatt Earp sashaying down the streets of Tombstone in a turban, and you begin to get the idea. Because Pakistani laws don't apply here, smugglers, gunsmiths and, most recently, the Taliban find Darra, as it's locally known, an optimal place to do business.

Most stores along the main road sell firearms or drugs. In one, freshly pressed slabs of hashish are cured in goat skins, stacked up like a new line of sweaters at the Gap. Next door, customers can walk in, pull a Kalashnikov… more

Let's Stop Running Scared

Ron Tang — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 06:49:00 -0400

Felt a little short of breath the other day, walking up a hill. Uh-oh. A nugget of worry lodged for a moment in my mind. At 50-something, I'm in decent enough shape. I don't smoke. I walk several miles most days, and I can still beat my 40-something friend at tennis. Not exactly a candidate for a heart attack. But still. I've read all those stories about women like me, the ones with no risk factors for cardiac disease who were suddenly hit with an attack.

Maybe you've had the same worries -- wondered whether some sharp little twinge was heartburn… more

Let's Try a Dose. We're Bound To Feel Better.

Ron Tang — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 07:20:00 -0400

"Socialized medicine" is the bogeyman that just won't die. The epithet has been hurled at every national health plan since the New Deal -- even Medicare, which critics warned would strip Americans of their freedom.

And now it's back. Republicans from President Bush on down have invoked the specter of socialism in denouncing Democrats' attempts to expand publicly funded health insurance for children. Erstwhile GOP presidential contenders Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney lambasted the health plans of the leading Democratic candidates for mimicking "the socialist solution they have in Europe" (Giuliani) and trying to impose "a European-style socialized medicine plan" (Romney).… more

Core Arguments

Ron Tang — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 05:24:00 -0400

A generation after Three Mile Island's near-disaster in 1979, nuclear power remains politically radioactive. Though energy consumption has increased dramatically -- Americans upped their per capita household electrical use by a third between 1980 and 2001 -- no new nuclear plants have been built since 1996. We've let the Mighty Atom sit in the penalty box rather than settle whether we're Pro-Nuke or No-Nuke once and for all.

In her provocative yet flawed and often frustrating book, "Power to Save the World," Gwyneth Cravens does us all the service of taking a fresh look at nuclear power and asking whether the… more

Daniel Levy and Ghaith al-Omari in Washington Post | In Search for Peace, a Shrinking White House Role

Communications — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 14:32:00 -0500

New America in the News:

In Search for Peace, a Shrinking White House Role (The Washington Post)

. . . Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator, said that key players in the region are moving beyond the Bush administration. "The feeling is that if you keep the flash points on a lower or somewhat higher flame, it will give you more cards when a new administration comes in," he said, speaking in a phone interview from Israel. "Everyone is sucking up to the Iranians," he added. . .

Ghaith al-Omari, a former adviser to Abbas and now advocacy director for the American Task Force on Palestine, faulted the Bush administration for not nurturing a process that it started. He noted that the administration has appointed three generals to assess various aspects of the issue, but that few people in the region understand their roles. Rice's two-day visit this week is her first substantive trip since the conference in November. . .

Eric Schmidt in The Washington Post | Google Chief to Chair Think Tank

Communications — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 07:25:00 -0500

New America in the News:

Google Chief to Chair Think Tank (The Washington Post)

The New America Foundation named Eric Schmidt, the chairman and chief executive of Google, as its chairman. His unpaid position begins June 1 at the District think tank, which says its mission is to bring new voices and new ideas to public discourse. Schmidt's election follows the September arrival of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll as president and chief executive. Coll formerly worked at The Washington Post. more