Armies inevitably refight the last war, and generals are often unprepared for the new war their enemy brings them. The law and ethics of war follow the same pattern. Years go by before lawmakers and ethicists recognize the worrisome changes that have overtaken warfare. It took decades for the human

Welfare rolls have dropped more than 50 percent over the past decade. Former President Bill Clinton, who spearheaded welfare reform through the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, promised to end welfare as we know it. Now he, along with Secretary of Health, Educati

Alma E. Miller was 102 years old when she died in 1994. For 78 of those years she had been a member of the religious congregation called the Society of the Sacred Heart. During much of that time, she was the mistress of studies, that is to say, the academic dean, in one or other of the schools for g

As the nation prepares to observe the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, national security is poised to become once again the central issue in the electoral season. The question is hardly academic, given the revelation in August of a foiled terrorist plot to blow up Americ

Nowhere in the United States is it possible for a full-time worker earning the minimum wage to rent a one-bedroom apartment at market rates. Despite this shameful reality, Congress has again balked at increasing the minimum wage from its present $5.15 an hourunchanged since 1997. According to a repo

In its short modern history, Lebanon has been brutalized by both its neighbors and its own internal divisions. Syria, the Palestinians, Hezbollah, Israel and the country’s own religious militias all have inflicted blows on the small Mediterranean state. Besides its 1982 invasion to dislodge th