Huffington Post 01/24/2013 By Michael Shank No matter how much Congress softens the sequestration’s austerity footprint, everyone in government will have to nip-and-tuck in order to balance budgets. And that will include the Pentagon — something that Secretary of Defense nominee Chuck Hagel and even the Bowles-Simpson commission support. We […]
Huffington Post 12/28/2012 By Michael Shank That three New Jersey police officers were shot today, by a suspect being processed for a completely unrelated domestic incident, pokes holes in the National Rifle Association’s remedy for gun violence in America. How would the NRA, who suggested after the Sandy Hook shooting […]
Huffington Post 12/06/2012 By Michael Shank and Lindsay Schubiner The greatest legacy of Marion Barry, as city council member of the District of Columbia, could’ve been his latest ex-offender bill, which was shot down this week by fellow Democrat on the council Phil Mendelson. Chairman Mendelson, using procedural tactics, never […]
Huffington Post 12/03/2013 By Michael Shank If anyone thinks that the Discovery Channel is about actual discovery of, say, science, history, space, or tech, as their website claims, think again. Or if you think that its sister company, The Learning Channel (TLC), is about learning new insight or information, you […]
Huffington Post 11/28/2012 By Michael Shank There is much to laud in the recently released film Lincoln, and Participant Media, which produced the film, points a principled way forward for fellow filmmakers, and their audiences, who care about social action. Participant Media is relatively new to Hollywood, but it has […]
AL JAZEERA 11/21/12 Huffington Post 11/26/2012 By Michael Shank and Sonia Manzano No longer can the President of the United States defer dealing with immigration. While it was barely a campaign issue, for America to continue avoiding comprehensive immigration reform is plainly inexcusable. When President Obama takes up immigration reform […]
Huffington Post 11/15/2012 By Michael Shank Of the two rivers that cup our nation’s capital — the Potomac and the Anacostia — the latter of the two is, perhaps, the most apt reflection of where America is at socio-economically. The Anacostia River, the Anglicized namesake of which was first officially […]
Huffington Post 10/30/2012 Al Jazeera 11/01/2012 By Michael Shank Watching television this week, as Hurricane Sandy descended on Washington D.C. and meteorologists scurried to remain atop the latest forecasting, myriad presidential election campaign advertisements were met with one major marketing competitor: the American Petroleum Institute and its various oil, coal […]
Huffington Post 10/07/2012 Al Jazeera 10/09/2012 By Michael Shank If someone got physically violent on the Metro in Washington DC, they would get kicked off the train or bus. Similarly, if someone indecently exposed him or herself (as noted in the new Metro ads threatening action against indecent exposure) or […]
Huffington Post 09/28/2012 Al Jazeera 09/30/2012 By Michael Shank The riots across the Muslim world give warning to something much direr than a diplomat’s death, however deplorable the Benghazi tragedy. What we say, do, and eat has global implications, and on these three major security frontiers we must do better: […]