Every now and then, an insider inadvertently exposes the hideous rationalizations that run the American political grotesquerie. The best known of these statements are memorialized on TV as "gaffes." But the ones that never become famous tend to reveal the

The Chicago area has long been one of the nation's most important manufacturing centers. But now that the City of Big Shoulders has been stripped of much of its industrial base, state and local officials--along with corporate developers--hope to capitalize

Negotiations have resumed in Copenhagen after a walkout by the African delegation on Monday. African governments were concerned with the lack of commitment by rich country governments to reducing their own emissions. This follows on the heels of last week's

TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS--The military-backed, de facto government of Honduras had hoped that the November 29 presidential election would quell a political standoff that had lasted for more than five months. But, just over two weeks later, it doesn't seem to have

What can one make of the civil war playing itself out inside the Service Employees International Union? "Civil war" is not far from an exaggeration. When the SEIU leadership decided to move against one of its largest locals--SEIU United Healthcare

Has nothing changed since we were preparing to invade Iraq eight years ago? Yes, we have a new president, one who is smart and speaks in complete sentences. Yet we are about to jump pell-mell into escalating another war. With

Editor's note: To culminate our special "Revolution at 50" edition, we offer this slideshow of contemporary photographs by Kaloian, a staff photographer for the Cuban newspaper Juventud Rebelde (Young Rebel). All feature the Cuban flag, and none are accompanied by

The rare resignation on principle is always telling in American government. When Matthew Hoh left the State Department in October--a Marine Captain in Iraq who became a diplomat in Afghanistan early this year--his act was significant far beyond the first

Washington's favorite term these days is "moral hazard." Though this buzzphrase may seem like a complex and even intimidating idea, most of us, whether we consciously or not, understand the principle because it's basic common sense. Applaud your kid for

On September 20, more than 1 million people in the Plaza de la Revolucion watched Colombian rocker Juanes and his friends--cheering, dancing, swooning from the Havana heat. Those that watched the concert know there was merengue, salsa Nueva Trova (the

It's a bad marriage--the kind that makes you want to run down the aisle yelling, "Stop the wedding!" The planned union between Comcast and NBC Universal (NBCU) spells disaster: it paves the way for a new era of mega-media consolidation

Today is the day I've decided to write about. I'm sitting on the top bunk in the room I share with my son Bayron, who asks me to change the channel on the TV. My sister asks about the entrance

Ashley Ellis's misdemeanor arrest turned into a death sentence. Her crime: "careless and negligent operation of a motor vehicle." Less than two days after entering a Vermont prison on a 30-day sentence, she died from the careless and negligent operation

Climate-change activists at Copenhagen will argue that, far from solving the climate crisis, carbon-trading represents the unprecedented privatization of the atmosphere... Not only will these 'market-based solutions' fail to solve the climate crisis, but the failure will dramatically deepen poverty

EDITORS NOTE:The following posts are from the blog LGBT Cuba News Today.In These Times offers this selection in lieu of the article that was to have been written by Mario José Delgado Gonzáles (ultramarino321@yahoo.com), who was jailed in August for

Blog." Many people in Cuba don't understand all the fuss regarding this mono-syllabic word that seems to have no relationship to the daily routine of survival. On the Island, the blogosphere is an incipient media and, outside of Havana, all

On July 31, 2006, Fidel Castro, gravely ill, underwent emergency surgery and nearly died. He has been recuperating ever since. The day of the surgery, national radio and TV broadcast Fidel's announcement that he was passing the government's reins to

TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS--The military-backed de facto government in Honduras named Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo to be the new head of State on Sunday, November 29, after a controversial election that many local and international human rights experts had denounced as both fraudulent

On October 16, Juventud Rebelde (Rebellious Youth), the official newspaper of the Union of Communist Youth, published an online article titled, "Against the Demons who Kidnap Information," by José Alejandro Rodríguez, a staff writer. The reproduction below was translated by

November marked the anniversary of major events in 1989: "the biggest year in world history since 1945," as British historian Timothy Garton Ash describes it. That year "changed everything," Garton Ash writes. Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms within Russia and his "breathtaking