According to Google Trends, Americans search the web for information on Islam most frequently, compared to other major religions.  

The data also shows that religion-focused search volume follows a fairly consistent pattern: it flatlines at the start of the year, tapers du… Read full post »

Don’t judge this article in the Scientific American by its headline: “Neuroscience Coverage: Media Distorts, Bloggers Rule”.  The headline implies that the scholarly research behind the article simply regurgitates the tedious debate about whet/… Read full post »

Along with legitimate scholars and creative geniuses, the art and science of forecasting has always attracted opportunists eager to exploit people’s anxieties about the inherently uncertain future.  On Wall Street, propheteers today enjoy a fantastically favorable climate for their craft.… Read full post »

In a recent IBM survey of 1,500 CEOs from 60 countries, the majority of the respondents pointed to creativity as the most crucial factor for future success.  Over the past decade or so, we’ve heard this sentiment reiterated in countless speeches by politicians and in the vast sch/… Read full post »

1. Why Does Intermarriage Matter?

Some explosive antagonisms in the Jewish community simmer below the threshold of expression or even conscious awareness.  On occasion, these conflicts erupt in a public forum, revealing pain and loss, complex struggles and confused affinities.  The debate r… Read full post »

What irritates me more than Rush Limbaugh's hateful bravado is the sanctimony of advertisers like AOL.

Yesterday, AOL issued this statement. 

• "At AOL one of our core values is that we act with integrity. We have monitored the unfolding events and have determined that Mr. Limbaugh&rsq
… Read full post »

I can’t add much to the reporting or the ridicule that Santorum has received, especially in response to his views on the proper role of religion in public life.  I just can’t help but express my shock about the fact that this presidential candidate has advanced this far in America in… Read full post »

When I graduated from college in 1996, the Nasdaq hovered around 1,200.  As I started my career, the index as well as many asset classes and other economic indicators already showed signs of exponential growth that inspired Alan Greenspan’s “irrational exuberance” meme in a&nbs… Read full post »

I've read one of David Horowitz's books -- The End of Time -- and I believe he is a brilliant writer and thinker. He also makes a great point in this opinion piece: Racism is an abomination, regardless of who perpetrates it, or whom it benefits. When Samuel L. Jackson says, with… Read full post »

The Dow Jones Industrial Average will start the trading day today at a four-year high and  about 50 points away from the psychologically important level of 13,000.  Especially with the news this morning of a $170 billion Greece bailout, the Dow could easily set a new high/… Read full post »

In some respects, there’s nothing wrong with MSNBC’s firing of Pat Buchanan.   Because we live in a free society, the commentator was free to publish a book that demeans homosexuals and non-Christians, and MSNBC was free to fire him.  Arguably, no one committed a crime here… Read full post »

We embrace freedom of speech as an abstract principle, but we often hate nothing more than a concrete human being speaking and writing freely.  Shame on MSNBC for firing Pat Buchanan for his hateful beliefs and writings.  Buchanan is right: much of the hate speech that compelled MSNBC to fi… Read full post »

Several stories in top-tier U.S. and Russian media chronicle the increasingly vehement anti-American rhetoric in Vladimir Putin’s presidential campaign.   In particular, the articles note, Putin has turned into a mantra the claim that America is trying to weaken an/… Read full post »

The most important thing about Margin Call is that this is not a film about the Fall of Modern Finance.  It’s not even about finance.  Or Wall Street.  As all great films, Margin Call is about the human condition. It’s about intimacy and alienation, survi… Read full post »

No author has taught me more about mythology than Joseph Campbell, the author of The Masks of God, The Hero with a Thousand Faces and many other books that collectively represent a big bang of sorts in the world's intellectual history. Here, I wanted to highlight one of the important ideas… Read full post »

Few places inspire clichés as prolifically as dating websites.  Read the profiles of connection-seeking singles on Match.com, eHarmony or JDate, and you’ll quickly recognize phrases, sentences and images that spring up in profile after profile, almost as if some Jungian Universal Un… Read full post »

Below is something I thumb-wrote on my iPhone’s notepad, on a beautiful breezy night in Mexico, during the best vacation of my life, to the hushing sound of tepid waves.  I gave myself plenty of time on this vacation to reflect, to breathe, to meditate, and simply to be.  I was… Read full post »

We are all wounded idealists gripped by impotent rage.  We see so much injustice, so much suffering of the innocent and the joys of the wicked.  We see mediocrities succeed and noble spirits writhe in pain.  We see our best ideas trampled in the sewers of baser minds.  We fee… Read full post »

Most of us have been using social media for years without any formal introduction to the governing dynamics of the digitally networked world.  Douglas Rushkoff's Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commandments for the Digital Age offers an introduction, a set of guiding principles as well as a medita… Read full post »

Think about what exactly differentiates fundamentally optimistic narratives from fundamentally pessimistic narratives.  In both types, the Hero faces agonist and antagonist objects.  The prevailing tendency in the resolution of these encounters sets the emotional tone of the narrative.

In o… Read full post »

An atheist or an agnostic might cringe at the idea of prayer, simply because it so easily evokes the idea of a god, or some object or recipient who hears and answers the prayer.  Even in its intransitive sense, the word “pray” connotes an exterior point of focus clearly set apart… Read full post »