BY FROMA HARROP The recent award of Nobel Prizes in biology and chemistry to three women dredges up Larry Summers’ suggestion in 2005 that differences in the female brain may account for the dearth of top women scientists. Now President Obama’s economic adviser, Summers was then speechifying as president of Harvard. Carol Greider, who just […]

BY JIM HIGHTOWER Five days before taking the oath of office, Barack Obama called on the millions of people who had actively campaigned for him to be the engine for real change in America: “I don’t want them to just sit around and wait for me to do something. I want them to be pushing […]

BY SUSAN ESTRICH OK, so President Barack Obama hasn’t accomplished enough to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize under the conventional approach. There is, no doubt, some courageous political prisoner somewhere in the world who has been in home confinement for decades fighting a repressive and dictatorial regime and deserves it more. Granted. The thing […]

I must be the only “foodie” who didn’t love Julie & Julia, the movie about Julia Child and the office worker she inspired, Julie Powell. Am I allowed? And even though I grow heirloom beans and patronize local cheese makers, I remain dry-eyed over the imminent closing of Gourmet magazine. Put bluntly, I’m fed up […]

BY SUSAN ESTRICH Afghanistan used to be a great issue for Barack Obama. As a candidate, he repeatedly argued that George W. Bush and his Defense Department had lost their way, focusing too much attention [and troops and resources] on Iraq while shortchanging the more important mission in Afghanistan. As a candidate, he brought up […]