Conservatism cherishes tradition; innovation fetishizes novelty. They tug in different directions, the one toward the past, the other toward the future.

Throughout the nineteen-seventies and eighties, especially during periods of recession, employees were moved from offices to cubicles.

Theories of history used to be supernatural: the divine ruled time; the hand of God, a special providence, lay behind the fall of each sparrow. If the present differed from the past, it was usually worse: supernatural theories of history tend to involve decline, a fall from grace, the loss of God's favor, corruption.

History's written from what can be found; what isn't saved is lost, sunken and rotted, eaten by earth.

Populist promises to reverse every tough decision are nothing but empty rhetoric, irresponsible leadership, and bad politics. They are not the solution to Ireland's problems.

As much as I'd love to believe that we are 'post-racial' - an idea that really gained traction after the election of Barack Obama in 2008 - I can never escape the fact that in the world I am perceived as a 'black man' and, in certain parts of the world, as a 'black gay man.'

Rather than improving the wealth of their own nation, the Mexican government encourages its poor to come to the U.S. and send money home.

Athletes have the same rights everybody else does. If there is a strength in our democracy, it's that we are encouraged to exercise those rights and speak out and hold people in power in check.