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The Smithsonian’s patriotism problem

“Warning: The exhibits in this museum were prepared by people who don’t want you to love your country.” That’s a disclaimer every entrance to the National Museum of American History ought to display, according to a new report by the White House excoriating the Smithsonian Institution and its flagship museum. But it doesn’t take a 160-page report to show what’s wrong with the Smithsonian — just walk into any of its museums. With a bit of time on my hands in the Chinatown area of Washington, D.C., last year, I decided to take a stroll through the National Portrait ...

Americans are not as well off as people in peer nations – US safety net’s shortfalls show up in global data

As the United States celebrates the 250th anniversary of its Declaration of Independence, the global data we collect and analyze shows that the country is failing to “promote the general Welfare,” as the Constitution’s framers promised a little more than a decade later. We are scholars of human rights. Alongside the Human Rights Measurement Initiative, a nonprofit that tracks how well more than 200 countries and territories are meeting the human rights commitments their governments have made, we annually update scores measuring whether people can actually get the basics of a ...

Dear Annie: Hoping to heal a hurting family

Dear Annie: I’ve been married for 35 years and have four children and seven grandchildren. We are a blended family. All the children lived with, and were raised by, my husband and me. One of my daughters was always kind of a black sheep, always doing things outside the box. As a young child, teen and adult, she always did it differently. So much so that, as she got older, it actually started to hurt our family and the other children. She moved out in her early 20s, and I thought things would get better, but they just got worse. Then she came and told us she was pregnant and getting ...

Looking at therapeutic plasma exchange for MS prevention

DEAR DR. ROACH: I was diagnosed with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) at the age of 46. The course of the disease was mild for me with only three identifiable MS attacks (in both my spine and brain). Although I initially resisted treatment, I took Copaxone shots for seven years before my neurologist believed that it was safe to discontinue treatment. Since this time, I haven’t had any new attacks, only some occasional balance issues and lingering weakness in my left leg. My concern is secondary progressive MS (SPMS) and the possible consequences of an occurrence. I’ve ...

Are you chasing false gods?

My sadly departed friend, Frank, was a unicorn. He lived 89 years in the town he grew up in, a village on the Connecticut shore. A reporter at his local newspaper for over half a century, he had turned down offers to work for more glamorous publications, among them Sports Illustrated and The New York Times. Frank had considered the priesthood in his youth. He stopped going to church and claimed he wasn’t part of it anymore, but the church’s moral teachings clearly stayed put. Frank approached reporting as a kind of ministry, spending much time talking with his “flock.” His ...

Mamdani’s twisted view of America

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani delivered a Fourth of July message that sounded like America is on its death bed. Immigrant citizens standing on each side of him as he sat at a desk used by George Washington, were even more stoic. July Fourth is supposed to be a celebratory time. Not for Mamdani who looked as if he had lost his best friend. After some obligatory praise for the nation to which he immigrated, Mamdani said that for “the powerful, America is an arena of supremacy, where only a select few are allowed freedom, where not all are created equal. America, if you ask them, ...