President Obama met with Gen. McChrystal for 25 minutes over the weekend in Denmark. A bit of political theater, as they say. I got an email, from a former U.S. military official, with some thoughts on what the photo-op meant.

Obama is foolish to have McChrystal fly to Copenhagen [...]

With news breaking that Brazil has beaten out the U.S. for a chance to host the 2016 Olympic Games, I'm inspired to imagine the day Saudi Arabia might be in the running. It's not as far-fetched as it might seem. After all, just last month the country inaugurated a new world-class [...]

Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics was a neighborhood revitalization program disguised as a major sporting event. It was so cleverly disguised that it almost diverted billions in private and corporate funding to devastated African-American neighborhoods where billions in private and corporate funding would otherwise never go. But it was so [...]

Watching Rio de Janeiroites celebrate their Olympic bid's success, I felt warm. Happy. The honor seemed to matter more to Brazil than it would to a largely apathetic Chicago. My cynicism temporarily regressed. One man, Brazil's greatest athletic hero, poignantly symbolized the moment. Pele broke down and cried (fast forward to [...]

The 2016 Olympic bidding is done. The countdown today killed many Chicagoans' dreams. Others cheered in delight. Many secretly hope that this is what finally breaks Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley's machine after selling our city's soul to the parking meter moguls to help fund the Olympic coffers; his legacy is tarnished without [...]

I was originally going to headline this blog post, "Why the Olympics loss will be a good thing for Obama." But then as an ex-college debater who perhaps never reached my full potential because of my own stubbornness, I remembered that winning after you lose requires that you learn the [...]