For a number of decades, I have been deeply engaged in promoting close relationships between the United States and Turkey and between Israel and Turkey. Read More »

It’s that time of year again — time to focus on the good deeds and charitable giving initiatives of the language services industry. How did translation and interpreting companies give back and pay it forward over the past twelve months? Let us count the ways: Helping disseminate linguistic and cultural knowledge. Read More »

Today should be a marvelous day for me as a member of LGBT community living in Long Beach, Calif. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals just declared Proposition 8 unconstitutional, in effect ending marriage discrimination in the state. It’s a victory. It’s a triumph. Read More »

The big trend in fiction, particularly, the young adult market is in dystopian and post-apocalyptic stories. Just look at the popularity of The Hunger Games and its upcoming movie release. Read More »

It’s odd how things work out. While Ali Wentworth was getting engaged to a Jewish comedy writer in a castle in Ireland, I was trying to meet her then-still-single future husband, George Stephanopoulos. So it was with a tinge of trepidation that I picked up her new memoir, Ali in Wonderland and Other Tall Tales . After all, she’s Mrs. Read More »

In his pre-Super Bowl interview on Sunday night, President Obama went farther than ever before in stating his view that U.S. and Israeli interests are identical. Obama even topped Vice President Joe Biden who has repeatedly said that there must be “no daylight, no daylight” between U.S. and Israeli policies. Read More »

As the Egyptian military government prepares to put 19 American employees of pro-democracy NGOs on trial, and thousands of Egyptians continue to demonstrate over the stalling of democratic reforms, the new documentary 1/2 Revolution offers a striking look back at the Egyptian revolution of one year ago. Read More »

For most of my three-decade career handling national security budgets in Congress, Iran was two or three years away from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Read More »

The bust that was the Nevada Republican presidential caucuses revealed much about brewing Republican swing state problems and the decided limitations of both Mitt Romney’s candidacy and that of his most persistent pursuer, Newt Gingrich. Which in the latest twist may redound to the benefit of the unsung winner of Iowa, Rick Santorum. Read More »

One of the most frequent questions I get from journalists during interviews is “how do you have time to do everything you do? You run Fon , you are an active angel investor in so many companies, you teach at IE, speak at conferences, run your foundation, and on top of that you have a wife, 5 children, and you cycle, sail, and so on. Read More »

Today is my mother’s birthday. I have just recently begun to end phone calls by telling her that I love her. I’m sure I did it when I was five. It’s the intervening 43 years that were a little quiet. Here’s why I’ve changed: A few months ago I attended the funeral of a good friend’s mother. Read More »

In the brief interview he gave ABC before the Super Bowl, President Obama declared “I’ve been very clear that we’re going to do everything we can to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and creating an arms race, a nuclear arms race, in a volatile region.” Sounds like a very laudable goal, right. Read More »

George Gershwin called it Americana. Virgil Thomson called it “gefilte variations,” a snide allusion to gefilte fish, a traditional Jewish foodstuff. Both men were referring to “Porgy and Bess,” which, once again, is enjoying a successful run on Broadway. Read More »

History, to take license with John Lennon, is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. Somewhere inside, beneath the air of cheesy royalty, behind the wall of yes men and the armored SUVs of his motorcades, when Benjamin Netanyahu mulls his place in history, he knows what he has to show for it. It’s not a pretty sight. Read More »

Last week Emory University law professor John Witte, Jr. laid out a bold but reasoned approach on how to accommodate sharia (Islamic law) in the United States and other Western nations — one that protects religious freedom and human rights. Read More »

Have you tried speaking to a group of bright high school students wondering about what the current state of the world means for them and what they should do about it? I am grateful to have done so last week: I ended up gaining insights into how some of tomorrow’s leaders are thinking about the world they will inherit. Read More »

The following post first appeared as an article in The A-Blast , Annandale High School’s award-winning student newspaper. The Virginia Code is a document of violations. Among them is a violation of students’ religious freedom. At public schools across Virginia, students walk by this violation every morning. Read More »

By Mark Green The top two Republican presidential competitors continue their bitter Fisher-Spassky contest. Romney wins big in Florida but then adds to his patrician flub reel; Gingrich gives a non-concession speech and shares the date of his moon-colony, to be given statehood ahead of D.C. and Puerto Rico. *On Gingrich’s Viability. Read More »

If we are to believe what we are hearing and reading from a variety of confirmed and unconfirmed sources, in Israel and the U.S., some day in the next few months we may wake up to the news that Israel has bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities. Or maybe not. Read More »

If we are to believe what we are hearing and reading from a variety of confirmed and unconfirmed sources, in Israel and the U.S., some day in the next few months we may wake up to the news that Israel has bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities. Or maybe not. Read More »