Tip Your Hotel Maid
My grandmother worked in housekeeping for 10 years—and it’s a job where you could use a gratuity. As I check out of a hotel, various excuses race through my head for not tipping the housekeeper. I’m in a big rush. I don’t ha
The Middle East Needs to Go Where Arab Youth Want it to Go
On International Youth Day, which was August 12th this year, The Hill published an essay of mine about why the aspirations of youth in the Middle East, particularly Arab youth, matter to America and other global stakeholders
Trump’s Industrial Strategy Fails Without Amping Up Science
I think President Trump is on to something in trying to compel a change in China’s predatory trade practices and finally putting a spotlight on China’s government-orchestrated intellectual property theft.
America Needs Talent
Last Friday, I participated in a discussion with former Defense Secretary and US Senator Chuck Hagel, Washington Post senior national security correspondent Karen DeYoung, and Wall Street Journal executive Washington editor Gerald Seib on America’s Role in the World and US foreign policy.
Ode to Harris Wofford: Slight Madman in Zeal for Equality
1
Only a funeral, it seems, truly brings Washington together these days. Yesterday nearly a thousand guests, including distinguished emissaries from the Bush, Clinton, and Obama worlds, gathered at Howard University to honor Harris Wofford
Women, Abuse, and Weaponized Rape
Today, I was reading through some of the Witness episodes and write-ups produced by Al Jazeera and ran across Silent War: How Rape Became a Weapon in Syria. One of the brave women willing to share said: They started to rape women at roadblocks, at home in front of their husbands, their children
Jefferson: Yeah, But Still a…Politician
In response to my thoughts yesterday on the uplifting message of ‘respect for political adversaries’ embedded in a recently auctioned letter between then President Thomas Jefferson and founding father John Dickinson, I got a couple of interesting responses that I’ll share here.
A Founding Father’s Lesson: The Monarchist as Common Enemy
This weekend, a friend of mine spent a few tens of thousands of dollars buying a piece of American history at the Potomack Auction House in Alexandria, Virginia.
Trump Dropped Davos — So Empty Without Me?
To weirdly paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen smacking down Dan Quayle, Donald Trump is no Eminem. But the latter’s thumping Without Me would appeal to the Donald. SNL should do a karaoke skit of Alec Baldwin/The Donald singing all those lines, maybe inserting Mueller for Moby. In Trump’s mind, he is the party; he is the sizz
Doing Davos Again?
During the five days of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, the talented Barry Colson has for years owned the anchor entertainer top spot at Davos’ Hotel Europa where the most highly credentialed multinational CEOs sing, badly but passionately, along with the uncredentialed hoi polloi who want to collect stardust wherever they can go without being…