APRIL 2024 MAGAZINE

The issue of civil rights has gotten a lot of play of late in the media. Police behaving like thugs, the TSA practicing "risk-based security," the right of the LGBT community to marry, the NSA listening in – all of these issues raise legitimate concerns about our relationship with authority.

                  It has always been a push-pull with us; there are always “bad guys” looking for an unfair advantage. On the other hand, we...

The Denver Art Museum (DAM) in Colorado – known for its remarkable art shows, which have included works by Van Gogh, Picasso, Chagall and Matisse – currently has a bursting, vibrant exhibit of Joan Miró’s paintings and sculptures, titled “Instinct and Imagination.” The presentation, featuring Miró’s accomplishments in the last decades of his life, 1963 to 1983, is from the Museo Nationale Centro de Arte Reina, in Sofia, Madrid.

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A dozen years ago, “microlending” seemed like the Next Big Thing, but the idea is older than that. In 2006, Muhammad Yunis, the father of what we know as the “microloan” received the Nobel Peace Prize in the 1980s for the Grameen Bank, which he founded in Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries in the world.

The idea behind the Grameen Bank was to make banking work for the poor by turning it on its head, replacing cash-based...