“We’re from Texas, what country you from”? For years there was a TV ad for Ford’s F150 truck which featured a rough, tough-looking cowboy asking that uniquely Texas question. The […]

THE DIVIDE When did the celebration of ignorance become part of America’s exceptionalism? When did we begin to ignore the truths found in scholarship, science, education, knowledge, authority, humanity, experience, […]

IN THE BEGINNING… there was a cement-tough, Queens born, Sicilian baseball player, a minor leaguer who gave it up after a severe injury and became a neighborhood lawyer. He worked […]

We live in the Information Age: Knowledge is power and those who have it have an edge if they know how to use it. At least that’s the accepted wisdom. […]

Joe Manchin III, Democratic Senator from West Virginia, has perhaps become the most influential Senator in the nation. It is he and his belief in negotiation, compromise, bipartisanship and the […]

LOOKING AT FAILURE By the 1990’s it had become obvious to educators and politicians that America’s public school system was ailing and failing. The failures were widespread — not just […]