April 17, 2012

The Pragmatic Caucus: States and Cities Are Centers for Collaboration and Innovation

As I’ve argued on climate change, localizing the issue is one way to overcome the polarization that has paralyzed national-level action. And this strategy holds not just for climate, but a range of other issues, argues Brookings Institution Vice President Bruce Katz and Rockefeller Foundation president Judith Rodin. In an essay last year at Time magazine, they pointed to our cities’ mayors, states’ governors, and other local and regional officials as the new “Pragmatic Caucus” in American politics. Not only are these leaders and levels of government sources of important agreement, they also offer “the potential to restore purpose to our politics and civility to our commons.”

You can watch Bruce Katz discuss their thesis in a video from Brookings below.

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

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