Greg Veis

Mitch McConnell, Civil Rights Crusader: The GOP Senator's Regrets

newrepublic.com — In 1964, an ambitious young student at the University of Louisville made an impassioned plea to his classmates, urging them to march in solidarity with Martin Luther King Jr. At the time, Kentucky was no haven for race reformers-it was dominated by some of the same elements of the Democratic Party that vehemently rejected the very notion of civil rights.

The Science of Loneliness: How Isolation Can Kill You

newrepublic.com — S ometime in the late '50s, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann sat down to write an essay about a subject that had been mostly overlooked by other psychoanalysts up to that point. Even Freud had only touched on it in passing. She was not sure, she wrote, "what inner forces" made her struggle with the problem of loneliness, though she had a notion.

Between Two Ferns With Zach Galifianakis: James Franco

funnyordie.com — Episode 16: Zach Galifianakis sits down with James Franco to have a normal, everyday, run of the mill interview.

Georgia's War on Drugs: How Its Subutex Addiction Ended

newrepublic.com — N eedle drugs seldom make a city look pretty, but some cities are more disfigured by them than others. In 2006, when I first visited Tbilisi, Georgia, it had all the wrecked majesty of an ex-beauty queen with six years of track-marks down her arms. It was a great European capital in decay: crumbling bridges, refugees from war, and-most of all-cast-off syringes everywhere.

To Princeton Mom Susan Patton: A Princeton Man Responds

newrepublic.com — It's been a few weeks now since Susan Patton-the veteran human resources consultant who made sure to tell the world she went to Princeton, and also made sure to declare that her two sons did (both the older, married one who she feels "could have married anyone" and his single younger brother)-wrote her blunt letter to the college paper there.

Syria's Asma Al Assad: Perfect Dicator's Wife

newrepublic.com — W hen choosing a spouse, a dictator must take care. Eva Perón proved a great asset; Eva Braun, less so. Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, educated at Wellesley, got grown men to weep when she spoke before a joint session of Congress in 1943 (good), but behind the scenes she was notably high-maintenance, insisting, for example, on silk sheets that had to be changed daily, or twice daily, if she had an afternoon nap (bad).

The Brazen Bibliophiles of Timbuktu

newrepublic.com — One afternoon in March, I walked through Timbuktu's Ahmed Baba Institute of Higher Studies and Islamic Research, stepping around shards of broken glass. Until last year, the modern concrete building with its Moorish-inspired screens and light-filled courtyard was a haven for scholars drawn by the city's unparalleled collection of medieval manuscripts.

Where Obama Staff Veterans Are Working in 2013

newrepublic.com — One of the stars of Barack Obama's 2012 State of the Union address was Jackie Bray , a single mother who was laid off in 2011 and struggled for months to find a good-paying job. Bray's luck finally turned, the president explained, when German industrial giant Siemens hired her at a turbine factory in North Carolina.

The Hell of American Day Care

newrepublic.com — was 5:30 in the morning when Kenya Mire looked down at her baby girl, Kendyll, who was curled up tight on a foldaway crib. "Night, night," Kendyll had just murmured in her quiet, serious way. At 20 months, she was picking up all sorts of words, like "baby," the name of the doll she kept nearby, and "Bryce," the name of her big brother.

Andrew Cuomo's Two Dads: Mario Cuomo and Bill Clinton

newrepublic.com — If the Germans covered Albany, they'd have a word for the ambivalence that Andrew Cuomo provokes in those with fond memories of his father. The mostly friendly rivalry between him and Mario is no secret-how the son made sure to let people know that as a member of Bill Clinton's Cabinet, he'd attained a rank above that of mere governor; how the father the son's 252-page 2010 campaign platform as a "pamphlet."