Emily Esfahani Smith is a writer and author known for her work on psychology, culture, and meaning. She contributed to The Weekly Standard in 2009 and 2010, covering a range of political and cultural topics including voter registration, U.S.-China relations, and campus controversies. She later became widely known for her book *The Power of Meaning* and her writing on human flourishing.
Nearly a year ago, the final seconds of Neda Agha Soltan’s life flashed across computer screens worldwide. Peacefully protesting the controversial Iranian presidential elections of last year, 26-year old Neda was shot in the heart by a member of the para-governmental Basij militia. Her dying…
Annapolis
Frank Kratovil is perhaps the most vulnerable Democrat in the House of Representatives. The 41-year-old freshman won Maryland’s First Congressional District by just 1 percentage point in 2008. But it’s a district that has historically tended red, and its citizens are far less enamored of Kratovil a…
On Monday, February 16th at the National Press Club in D.C., the 10-month-old American Principles Project launched the “Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles.” The American Principles Project, a group founded by Princeton’s Robert George to build a grassroots movement around conservative…
Reza Pahlavi learned an important lesson from Vaclav Havel: The Cold War opposition only thought they might be successful when Ronald Reagan called Russia an evil empire and triumphantly commanded Mr. Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. Pahlavi hopes Barack Obama speaks as definitively against…
Earlier today at the Heritage Foundation, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell delivered a speech on the many flawed policies of the Obama administration’s approach to terrorism, paramount among them, “that terrorism should be treated as a law-enforcement matter.”
In case you missed it, be sure to listen to this radio clip from a local Pennsylvania show, in which Senator Arlen Specter gets testy with Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann. Specter accuses Bachmann of interrupting him and says “I am going to treat you like a lady, so act like one.”
The recent news that Google might be shuttering operations in China after government officials there tried to hack into email accounts of human rights activists has given Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) an opportunity to publicize a piece of legislation he’s been touting since 2006. On Capitol Hill last…
In a story that will appear in the February issue of Esquire magazine, which will hit stands on January 19, Rod Blagojevich says,
In a story that will appear in the February issue of Esquire magazine, which will hit stands on January 19, Rod Blagojevich says,
A few years ago—as you probably remember—Duke University received a lot of bad publicity when a group of lacrosse players were (falsely, as it turned out) accused of brutally gang-raping a black stripper in Durham, North Carolina. Today, with the recent changes in the school's sexual misconduct…
Zaytuna College, which plans to be the first accredited Muslim college in the United States, is set to open next fall in Berkeley, California. The college has been hailed as a victory for moderate Islam, a place to promote religious understanding by "blending traditional Islam and American culture…
After the Fall
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) recently returned from a three day trip to Honduras where, according to her, human rights abuses are running rampant under the "coup regime" of interim president Michelletti.
At the end of last month, the New York City teachers' contract expired, opening the door to a series of negotiations between the teachers' union and the city's department of education, led by chancellor Joel Klein. But more than a week into negotiations over the new contract, the talks are…
Pamela Key does not work for the Republican National Committee. She has no formal training in journalism. An illustrator of children's books, she never finished college. And yet, her oppositional research, her investigative journalism, and her philosophical convictions have all come together to…
It's been a rumor since the 2008 presidential campaign that Bill Ayers ghost-wrote or co-wrote Barack Obama's memoir, Dreams from my Father. The story seems to be on fire again, though, because a new Obama-friendly book by best-selling author Chris Anderson, perhaps without realizing it, seems to…
"I served in al Anbar [Iraq]. I tried to conduct a comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign with insufficient resources . . . I didn't have enough boots on the ground." The Iraqi insurgents killed his troops. They blew up his economic projects. Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations…
Former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie and respected pollster Whit Ayers have joined forces to launch Resurgent Republic, what Ayers describes the "Democracy Corps" of the right. Founded by James Carville and Stanley Greenberg, Democracy Corps-like Resurgent Republic-conducts…
"We have a crucial stake in Afghanistan," said Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., speaking at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington D.C. On this eighth anniversary of September 11th, the ambassador took aim at Nancy Pelosi's remarks about Afghanistan…
Forget health care, the Iraq war, and economic stimulus -- "the big issue of [the] 2008 [election] was voter registration." So says Doug Chapin, the director of election initiatives for the PEW Center on the States, which yesterday hosted a meeting introducing the new 13-person Committee to…
Forget health care, the Iraq war, and economic stimulus -- "the big issue of [the] 2008 [election] was voter registration." So says Doug Chapin, the director of election initiatives for the PEW Center on the States, which today hosted a meeting introducing the new 13-person Committee to Modernize…