I was watching the periphrastic pundit, actor and neo-economist Ben Stein on CBS Sunday morning pontificating. He said that if President Obama offered more happy talk, more conviction that times would get better, then they would. 
I was watching him just a few minutes after I had a conversation with a sister who lost her job the same week her husband did. They were confident that they could make it through three months, thanks to savings, but didn't know what would happen to them after that. Stein wants happy talk, sister wants a job. . . .

Glenn Loury, a professor in the Department of Economics at Brown University, has long been one of the nation's most outspoken Black intellectuals. 
For many years he was a leading conservative voice on topics like affirmative action, and whenever he focuses on a policy issue affecting the Black community, people pay attention. In his title essay in the recent book, "Race, Incarceration, and American Values," Professor Loury sounds the alarm on some of the same concerns the Children's Defense Fund has been raising when we talk about the pipeline to prison crisis. . . .

Since taking office, President Obama signed the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act which will create millions of jobs, increase and extend unemployment insurance, and subsidize health care coverage for nearly five million unemployed Americans. President Obama also challenged all of us that for this new era to be successful, it will require service, sacrifice and faith of all Americans. . . .

"Can you find me a lawyer in the United States?" asked Aswad, an uneducated, poor farmer from a remote region of the Syrian countryside believes that in America, justice can be served. He believes that in America no one is above the law.
I met Aswad in a Damascus café in the fall of 2008 after learning of his story from a humanitarian aid worker. He confided in me the hell he had endured as a pawn in the "War on Terror" and convinced me of . . .

During this Black history month the nation and the world anxiously watch the living Black history that is taking place with the first African American president. Yet at this very same moment the future of Black America is in an exceedingly precarious condition . . . .

Apparently Colonel Jay Raymond, commander of the flagship Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo., didn't get the word. Barack Obama is the 44th president of the United States. He's also the Commander in Chief of the armed forces. The failure to get the word was apparent when Raymond did not instantly reprimand Peterson commissary employees for abruptly yanking Obama's picture from the commissary entrance. . . .

If newspaper readership is plummeting, maybe it's because readers are turning elsewhere to catch a glimpse of the causes behind the official story. Recognizing this, some book publishers courageously are using their printing presses to bring interpretive reporting to the reading public. Here are a dozen books Americans need to read as they paint a realistic picture of how our government's policies are inflicting needless suffering at home and globally. . . .

Incarceration is becoming the new American apartheid and poor children of color are the fodder.
It is time to sound a loud alarm about this threat to American unity and community, act to stop the growing criminalization of children at younger and younger ages, and tackle the unjust treatment of minority youths and adults in the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems with urgency and persistence. ...

Dear Editor; How exciting is this; in office just over a week and President Obama has introduced a bill to create, over the next two years, 3 to 4 million jobs. And healthcare for the unemployed. And green jobs ....
Dear Editor; We're headed for the "Great Bush Depression" unless we get this bill passed quickly. Even then, we might still be in hot water for another 18 months. Without it, it will be the beginning of the end for America as the world's single superpower....

An increasing number of people, including two of my journalism colleagues – Rochelle Riley and Cynthia Tucker – are proposing that we stop celebrating Black History Month. I strongly disagree and, evidently, so does Barack Obama, who signed an executive order designating February as African-American History Month....