The Enron corporate culture was one that catered to hyper-energized, testosterone-injected alpha males, according to this hour’s guest, Vanity Fair writer Marie Brenner. Board meetings often resembled brawls, where people kept their jobs by sacrificing their co-workers. If you couldn’t run with the pack at Enron, you would be consumed by it.
Within this glittering glass [...]

“Illegal file-sharing and ripping of music files is pervasive, out of control and oh so criminal. Many of the nominees here tonight, especially the new, less-established artists, are in immediate danger of being marginalized out of our business. Ripping is stealing their livelihood one digital file at a time, leaving their musical dreams haplessly snared [...]

According to national security analyst Chris Seiple, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have it right when it comes to American security and the use of its military.
Democrats want to use the military for everything, from nation building to humanitarian issues. Republicans only want the military to be used with overwhelming force in conventional wars. [...]

In what is believed to be a medical first, a woman with a gene that causes early-onset Alzheimer’s gave birth to a child without the gene, thanks a laboratory procedure that pre-selected her eggs.
The 33-year-old patient had eggs removed from her body; those with the offending gene were discarded and those without were artificially fertilized. [...]

With Israel and Palestine at a violent impasse, Saudi Arabia stepped in earlier this week to propose a plan to end the decades-old war. Saudi Arabia promised full recognition of Israel’s right to exist if Israel pulled its troops out of occupied lands that formerly belonged to Arab nations. Because of Saudi Arabia’s influence in [...]

As many economists express optimism that the economy is turning around, the numbers paint a less rosy picture. In January, the unemployment rate hovered at 5.6%. It was a slight drop from the month before, but that was only because nearly one million Americans had given up on finding work. In January, the American economy [...]

Sylvia Plath. Anne Sexton. Robert Lowell. In addition to being great writers, these three Americans have something else in common: they all spent time at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. Some of the other prominent names that have appeared on the McLean roster include “A Beautiful Mind” subject John Nash; Central Park designer Frederick Olmstead, [...]

As the United States pursues its “war against terrorism,” several of its most important allies have expressed concern about what they see as America’s willingness to go it alone. After President Bush’s famous “axis of evil” statement, EU External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten called the “unilateralist urge” in Washington “profoundly misguided.”
To the Europeans, the best [...]

Mike Tyson was cleared of sexual assault charges yesterday, clearing the way for his June 8th bout with Lennox Lewis in Washington, DC. The Tyson camp has been looking for a venue to stage the fight, which was originally scheduled for April but was postponed when the Nevada Boxing Commission denied Tyson a boxing license.
The [...]

Government officials confirmed last night that kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl had been killed by his captors. Pearl was abducted on January 23rd while reporting on a story about the possible links between alleged “shoe-bomber” Richard Reid and Pakistani militants.
Pearl’s death has shaken journalists worldwide, who have to face dangers every day in [...]

It was less than a half-century ago in the heart of the Midwest that a witch-hunt that would make a Puritan proud resulted in dozens of homosexual men being institutionalized. The panic began with the brutal assault and murder of a young boy and a young girl in Sioux City, Iowa in 1955. The police’s [...]

Many academic studies have been written about the different cultures that surround the lives of black and white Americans. Karla Holloway has taken that analysis a step further — to examine the cultural difference in how Caucasians and African Americans die.
The black funeral industry had its inception at the beginning of the 20th century. Holloway [...]

Thirty years to the day after President Nixon’s historic visit to China, President George W. Bush is scheduled to arrive in Beijing this evening to visit with Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
The relationship between the two leaders got off to a rocky start last year, when the Chinese downed a U.S. spy plane and detained the [...]

Earlier this week, the Bush Administration unveiled a new protocol for dealing with Americans who are kidnapped and held hostage overseas. The new approach will require the government to at least review every single case of kidnapping, and consider taking direct action in every case. In the past, the government frequently did not even consider [...]

60 years ago today, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed an executive order authorizing the internment of over 100,000 Japanese Americans. The fear that people of Japanese descent living in America might aid the cause of the Axis power at war with the United States was enough to compel the government to undertake what many call [...]

The media did a great job in the early stages of the war on terror, concludes a new study by The Project for Excellence in Journalism. But, over the past several months, the press’s performance has rated less than stellar.
“As the story moved to the war in Afghanistan, however, analysis and opinion swelled–so much so [...]

President Bush has finally unveiled his much-anticipated plan to reduce so-called greenhouse emissions that are thought to play a role in global climate change.
The new plan will not require greenhouse emissions cutbacks as the Kyoto Protocol would have. The Kyoto treaty was rejected by the Bush Administration last year even though nearly every other industrial [...]

The federal government requires companies to pay their employees at least $5.15 per hour. But many municipalities across the country have decided that the minimum wage is simply not enough for someone to live on.
New Orleans became the latest city to enact a “living wage” ordinance. But unlike similar efforts, the New Orleans plan covers [...]

With an election scheduled to be held in less than a month, Zimbabwe is again experiencing turmoil, as the government led by President Mugabe is inciting violence and refusing to recognize international elections observers.
Thomas Mapfumo knows all about upheaval in Zimbabwe. As the majority Shona tribe fought for freedom from the ruling white Rhodesian government, [...]

Ma Bell felt its wrath. So did the airline industry. More recently, the trend towards deregulation has honed in on the utility companies around the nation. California became one of the first states to deregulate its power market, and it saw a steep rise in prices and rolling blackouts as a result. Enron was essentially [...]

There is one characteristic that all the great Empires throughout history hold in common: they all eventually fell. From the glory days of Rome to the time when the Ottomans dominated Asia to the days when the sun never set on Britain’s holdings, every empire that dominated the world has seen their power crumble away. [...]

“We have not ruled out other options with respect to Iraq,” Secretary of State Colin Powell testified yesterday. “We still believe strongly in regime change in Iraq and we look forward to the day when a democratic, representative government at peace with its neighbors leads Iraq to rejoin the family of nations.”
President Bush used equally [...]

In the late 1990’s, the business world was marked by deregulation, a fast-paced corporate culture, and the “democratization” of the stock market, in which many more small investors got into the stock market game. Where did all that get us to? An economic slowdown and the Enron scandal that has damaged the confidence in the [...]

This week, former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay made news not by what he said, but by what he did not say. Before a Senate Commerce Committee hearing, Lay invoked his 5th Amendment rights not to testify. While the hearings were not a criminal trial, Lay feared that his testimony might come back to haunt him [...]

Over the past several decades, Middle Eastern Studies Departments have flourished on America’s college campuses. Thousands of professors teach classes on Middle Eastern politics and fill academic journals with their studies about the region. But Middle Eastern scholar Martin Kramer says the field of Middle Eastern Studies has been a huge failure over the past [...]

The trial of former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic got underway at the Hague today — the largest European war crimes trial since Nuremberg. Milosevic has argued that the international court has no jurisdiction over him and that there is no way he will get a fair trial. The Milosevic trial at the Hague represents a [...]

Pat Buchanan has never been one to pull any punches. As an outspoken conservative political candidate, he earned seven million votes for President in 2000. The title of his latest book demonstrates that he hasn’t slowed down a bit: “Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization.” In [...]

The Olympics were created to foster a sense of fellowship among nations through the friendly competition of sport. But from its very origins, the games have been highly politicized. In 1936, Adolf Hitler saw the Berlin games as the ideal venue to demonstrate the superiority of the German race. The 1968 Mexico City Games will [...]

Almost 21 years after his death, Bob Marley is still considered Reggae music’s most internationally know figure. Not only did his sound effect a generation of pop music, but he also brought his Rastafarian influenced messages to the four corners of the world. He became the voice of the poor and the oppressed. This hour, [...]

Botulinum Toxin has been classified as a major bioterrorism threat due to its extreme potency and lethality. So why on earth would over a million Americans want to inject it into faces? Because Botox, as it is called commercially, can help erase wrinkles. The procedures are expensive, require follow-up treatments every couple of months, and, [...]

When Condoleezza Rice was appointed National Security Advisor, the major criticism was that she was too “Europeanist.” Rice was a veteran of the Cold War, and some argued that her experience was lacking when it came to Asia and the Middle East. But over the past five months, Rice has received a crash course in [...]

The Bush Administration has announced a plan that will provide pre-natal care to working poor women under the federally financed Child Health Insurance Plan. It’s the type of plan that theoretically should receive accolades from all sides. But the plan has abortion rights proponents up in arms over the language contained in it. According to [...]

The Bush Administration is proposing a $48 billion increase in military spending in his next budget. At the same time, spending on foreign aid hasn’t been increased in a decade. Foreign aid makes up only one-half of one percent of the U.S. budget. But Harvard development guru Jeffrey Sachs says aid should play a more [...]

We all remember the election map of 2000: with its concetrations of Gore blue in the Northeast, Southern Florida, and the West Coast and gobs of Bush red throughout the rest of the country. But even since the last Presidential election, American politics has been turned on its ear. The line separating Democratic ideals from [...]

In his new book, this best selling-author argues that responding to terrorist attacks as though they were a crime, rather than a reason to wage war, only contributes to a continuing cycle of terrorist acts against civilians. Should “terrorists” be treated as soldiers? And how would that shift change both your understanding of their mission [...]

The Senate passed a ban on “soft money” donations to parties last spring, but House GOP leaders refused to let it come to a vote in their chambers — until now. The Enron scandal brought campaign finance reform back into the spotlight, and House legislators have petitioned to bring the bill to a vote. This [...]

The tipping point is the magical moment when an idea crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Even the smallest push, when targeted precisely, can have wide social impact. For example, tipping points can set off a huge fashion trend, which has the hippest fashionistas wearing Hush Puppies, or spur a rise in a [...]

The economic impact of Enron’s collapse is unraveling. It remains to be Determined just what the psychological impact will be. Will it trigger a crisis of confidence in the American economic system? Will the American people change investing strategies? Does President Bush’s proposed plan to protect the public go far enough?
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