America’s oldest public hospital started as a tiny, one-room infirmary in a New York City almshouse in 1736. Two hundred and eighty-one years later, it’s a sprawling hospital center complex with almost 900 beds, a massive outpatient service, dozens of adult and pediatric specialties, and medical care provided in over 200 languages. David Oshinsky narrates… Read more →
Ronit Y. Stahl
Ronit Y. Stahl
Contributor
The Burdens of Conscience: Thoughts on Burwell v. Hobby Lobby
In the late 1960s, two men refused to fulfill their military service obligations. One was a humanist and the other a Catholic, and both viewed Vietnam as an unjust war. However, they admitted they did not view all wars as unconscionable. This presented a problem because the Selective Service required men to certify that they… Read more →
For Women in the Workplace: A Lesson and a Cautionary Tale
Last week’s premature and untimely death of Michael Hastings produced numerous reflections on the loss of the hard-charging, courtesy-defying, convention-resisting, prickly-querying, and discomfort-inducing reporter. Embedded within the remembrances are a lesson and a cautionary tale for women in the workplace: a brilliant primer on self-advocacy and an unwitting warning about pervasive unrecognized assistance. First, a lesson:… Read more →
Stop Rape: A WWII Chaplain’s Advice
During this week’s oral arguments on California’s Prop 8, Justice Samuel Alito questioned whether the court could take a stand on gay marriage, which, he claimed, was “newer than cell phones or the internet.” Questionable logic aside, Alito’s insistence that wariness represents the appropriate response to any sort of “new” arrangement of sexual politics attracted… Read more →