This year, like every year, gives us an opportunity to consider where we've been, how we arrived at the present moment, and how we can launch a new year with promise.2008 was particularly difficult and is ending with our nation in the deepest recession since the Great Depression in the 1930s. These difficulties offer us an opportunity to make big changes in the way we think about our society, our neighborhoods and our role in moving into the future in a fair and just manner.

To understand the philosophy of government that Dick Cheney brought to Washington over the past seven years, it is most instructive to see Frost/Nixon, with Frank Langella's remarkable reanimation of Tricky Dick for a generation that never knew him. In Nixon's famous conversation with David Frost, there came a moment when the old...

All right, let's face it: 2008 wasn't a great year. An unending procession of bad news about bankruptcies, foreclosures, layoffs and stock-market downturns left the country skittish...

The gun industry and the National Rifle Association (NRA) don't want you to know that gun sales have stagnated for years, and their campaigns to legalize concealed carry and fight restrictions on the sales of highly lethal weapons are part of their strategy to boost stagnant gun sales. Tom Diaz, senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center, argues that this business strategy does...