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Majority rules on climate science?

December 4, 2013  •  The Boston Globe

BACK IN 2006, around the time Al Gore's global-warming documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," was released, I started a file labeled "What Climate Consensus?" Gore was insisting that "the debate among the scientists is over," and only an ignoramus or a lackey for the fossil-fuel industry could doubt that human beings were headed for a climate catastrophe of their own making. But it didn't take much sleuthing to discover that there was plenty of debate among scientists about the causes and consequences of global warming. Many experts were skeptical about the hyperbole of alarmists like Gore, and as I came across examples, I added them to my file.

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'Tis better to give, but some give more

December 1, 2013  •  The Boston Globe

WHEN IT comes to charitable giving, America is a world-beater. According to Giving USA, an annual compendium of national data on philanthropy, Americans last year donated more than $316 billion to charity, or roughly 2 percent of GDP. Contrary to popular belief, most of that money didn't come from foundations or corporations. It came from individuals. In 2012, donations from private American households added up to about $223 billion.

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When there was no going home

November 27, 2013  •  The Boston Globe

THANKSGIVING IS the quintessential American holiday. Nearly four centuries have passed since that first celebration in 1621, when, as Edward Winslow wrote in a letter to a friend back in England, the settlers of Plymouth Colony paused to "rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors" and "for three days … entertained and feasted" with 90 of their Wampanoag neighbors. What Thanksgiving was at the outset — part joyful harvest festival, part expression of prayerful gratitude, part occasion for games and reunions — it remains recognizably to this day.

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A pro-terror rally on a Palestinian campus

November 24, 2013  •  The Boston Globe

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When the joke was on JFK

November 20, 2013  •  The Boston Globe

SATURDAY NIGHT Live skewered President Obama last weekend in a spoof so merciless — a mock commercial for the antidepressant Paxil — that conservative bloggers found themselves wondering if it marked some kind of a turning point in the president's political support.

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