TIME Ideas

Cartoons of the Week: May 19–25

TIME Staff — Fri, 25 May 2012 19:36:19 +0000

The Best News Out of Afghanistan

Joe Klein — Fri, 25 May 2012 15:32:00 +0000

The Lesson of Jessica Barba and Her Bullying Video

Judith Warner — Fri, 25 May 2012 10:45:28 +0000

The latest entry into the American Annals of Absurdity is the story of Jessica Barba, a 15-year-old from Middle Island, New York, who created a fictitious 6-minute YouTube video and a fake Facebook page to tell the imagined story of “Hailey Bennett,” a bullied 12-year-old who commits suicide, to satisfy the requirements of a homework [...]

The Case for Banking Regulation

Rana Foroohar — Fri, 25 May 2012 10:34:41 +0000

Mary Richardson Kennedy: The Denial of Depression

Dominique Browning — Fri, 25 May 2012 09:45:51 +0000

Mary Kennedy’s friends held a memorial service in her honor earlier this week. One friend remarked to a New York Times reporter that during the eulogies “there was nothing about depression.” She felt that people had gotten the wrong impression of her lost friend. “No one remembers her as depressed.” Mary Kennedy committed suicide, hanging [...]

Why Do We Care More About Diversity on TV Than In Our Schools?

Noliwe M. Rooks — Thu, 24 May 2012 10:45:26 +0000

As soon as it premiered last month, HBO’s new series, Girls, was roundly criticized for the lack of racial diversity in the cast. Filmed in Brooklyn, the show chronicles the lives of four white female friends who have recently graduated from college. TV critics immediately questioned how it was possible for the stars to only [...]

How To Fix Pell Grants

Andrew J. Rotherham — Thu, 24 May 2012 10:45:09 +0000

A decade ago I was involved in an effort to rethink federal college aid programs in partnership with the Brookings Institution. We brought together a diverse set of thinkers to brainstorm about how to better target federal dollars to help the neediest students. Sounds pretty mundane, right? But it was a circus. People were so [...]

The Term ‘Pink Collar’ Is Silly and Outdated — Let’s Retire It

Amy Tennery — Wed, 23 May 2012 20:10:00 +0000

The Case for Negative Campaign Ads

Mark Penn — Wed, 23 May 2012 10:45:53 +0000

It’s quite popular to condemn negative advertising. It’s a great applause line on the stump. Newark Mayor Cory Booker recently got front-page headlines by condemning Obama’s ads about Romney and Bain Capital — until he had to take his comments back because, I would guess, the Republicans were using them as attack lines against the [...]

Brewing Business: Can Kickstarter Create A New Food Economy?

Josh Ozersky — Wed, 23 May 2012 10:45:50 +0000

Somewhere, at some time, you’ve probably met someone with a very well-thought-out, plausible, structured and completely insane plan to start his or her own food business. Maybe it was to sell a line of designer chutneys. Or unfiltered honey from a rooftop apiary. Maybe it was to open an omakase bar where the chef would [...]

Talking to Yourself: Not So Crazy After All

Annie Murphy Paul — Wed, 23 May 2012 10:45:09 +0000

In the privacy of our minds, we all talk to ourselves — an inner monologue that might seem rather pointless. As one scientific paper on self-talk asks: “What can we tell ourselves that we don’t already know?” But as that study and others go on to show, the act of giving ourselves mental messages can [...]

Why LeBron Doesn’t Need To Win The Title

Doug Glanville — Tue, 22 May 2012 10:00:52 +0000

Two years ago, LeBron James split the nation with his public announcement that he would be taking his services to Miami. His hometown city of Cleveland became the jilted lover, and Miami, with an already talented duo in Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, would now be perennial contenders for the title. He left a place [...]

College Drinking: Maybe Not a Disorder but Still a Big Problem

Erika Christakis — Tue, 22 May 2012 10:00:04 +0000

Proposed changes to the psychiatric profession’s diagnostic manual, the DSM-5, have caused a recent uproar, with critics worried that the new label of “alcohol abuse disorder” will overdiagnose young problem drinkers — as many as 40% of college students — who eventually outgrow their dysfunctional behavior. Editors of the DSM-5 countered that the change in [...]

What You Need to Know About the New Census Numbers on Hispanic Births

Christopher J. Ferguson — Mon, 21 May 2012 10:00:55 +0000

This past week, results from the U.S. Census Bureau showing that whites now account for less than half of all births made front-page news. Most of this demographic shift away from our nation’s Eurocentric heritage is being driven by Hispanics, whose median age is younger than that of whites and who tend to have more [...]

Has Obama ‘Gotten It’ in Time?

Jon Meacham — Mon, 21 May 2012 10:00:50 +0000

It was a headline long in coming. On the front page of the New York Times on Sunday, accompanying a story datelined Camp David, Maryland, there was a clear signal that President Obama recognizes the great political and cultural realities of the nation he leads. “World Leaders Urge Growth, Not Austerity,” wrote the editors of [...]

A New First Amendment Right: Videotaping the Police

Adam Cohen — Mon, 21 May 2012 10:00:33 +0000

When protesters gather in Chicago this week to express their views about the NATO summit, people will be able to videotape the police and post videos of any police misconduct. Recording the police used to be illegal in Illinois. But this month, a federal appeals court ruled that a state wiretap law prohibiting it conflicts [...]

Cartoons of the Week: May 12–18

TIME Staff — Fri, 18 May 2012 20:11:48 +0000

Time for Greece to Say Danke to Germany

Fareed Zakaria — Fri, 18 May 2012 11:34:40 +0000

The Latest Trend: Blaming Brain Science

Judith Warner — Fri, 18 May 2012 10:00:36 +0000

Is understanding human behavior as being driven, at least in part, by neurobiology, tantamount to “blaming the brain”? Does talk about genes, and brain structure and chemistry relieve us of personal responsibility for our actions, reinforcing a kind of hopeless fatalism, and allowing us such easy excuses for our bad behavior as – to borrow [...]

With Facebook at a Crossroads, Is Mark Zuckerberg's Future Still Bright?

Lev Grossman — Fri, 18 May 2012 10:00:04 +0000

In November 2010, I checked into the Silicon Valley Four Seasons for two weeks to write TIME’s Person of the Year story on Mark Zuckerberg. They were a good two weeks, and not just because of the room service. I got a close-up look at Facebook at a fascinating moment in its history, when it [...]