Safe Democracy Foundation - Safe Democracy

Dan Newman
12/10/2010

Newman says he should be the perfect candidate for an e-reader: he owns thousands of books, lacks space for more, and often schleps several heavy volumes in his bag. So when he begged his family to refrain from getting him a Kindle for Christmas, they were confounded. Newman reflects on his enjoyment of actual books and notes that he remembers passages by where they are in his books–this or that detail is two-thirds of the way through, on the bottom left. Physical memory runs deep. Newman sees e-books as a companion format that will always share space with printed volumes and concludes that it’s best to read a book you can hold in your own hands.

Newman is a writer at work on his first novel.

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Peter Orszag
12/10/2010

Disability insurance provides support for people who can no longer work because of a disability, but the likelihood that someone will re-enter the work force is almost nonexistent. There has been a spike in disability applicants, and Orszag says this is due to a weak labor market driving people who qualify for the program to apply because they cannot find work. He says the current economic downturn could cause a long-term reduction in workers. To counter that we need more stimulus immediately, an extension of unemployment insurance, and reforms of the disability program that encourages recipients to return to work. Orszag offers some program reform ideas.

Orszag, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget from 2009 to July 2010, is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

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Michael Gerson
12/10/2010

The new independence of South Sudan is a diplomatic success worth celebrating. After the Obama administration offered the Khartoum regime (the Muslim north of Sudan) a series of incentives called “the road map,” the regime agreed to allow southern Sudan to “go quietly.” The bipartisan nature of this pending diplomatic solution is worth noting: the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was begun in 2005 under the Bush administration, and helped create a unified national government in Sudan and guaranteed an “independence referendum” for south Sudan in 2011. That referendum will be voted on this January 9, with many southern Sudanese who now live in Khartoum returning to their home region to vote. Of course there will be challenges as the newly independent South Sudan becomes a nation, but this successful venture shows how government officials can do a great deal of good in the world.

Gerson is a nationally syndicated columnist who appears twice weekly in the Washington Post.

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