Wednesday's Daily Brief

Wednesday, August 17, 2011 Arianna Huffington: Why America Is Deeply in Need of a Good Hedgehog Arianna Huffington: What the country needs right now is a good hedgehog. Back in 1953, British philosopher Isaiah Berlin famously laid out two opposing styles of leadership -- hedgehogs and foxes -- taking his cue from a line in an ancient Greek poem by Archilochus: "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." According to Berlin, the fox will "pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory, connected, if at all, only in some de facto way." In contrast, the hedgehog offers an "unchanging, all embracing... unitary inner vision." Right now, with the country in crisis mode, the American people sense that our problems can't be solved by foxy spinning, triangulating, slicing and dicing, and tinkering at the edges. They are longing for a hedgehog at the helm -- even a fanatical, delusional hedgehog like those currently leading the Republican Party. POLITICS Obama To Give Major Speech On Jobs POLITICS Democrats Prevail In Wisconsin Recall Fights WORLD $360 Million In U.S. Combat Support Lost To Afghanistan Insurgents, Criminals BUSINESS Tobacco Companies Sue Federal Government Over Graphic Cigarette Warning Labels EDUCATION Charters, Choice, Teacher Quality: What The American Public Wants In Its Schools BLOG POSTS Robert Reich: How Austerity Is Ushering in a Global Recession Not only is the U.S. slouching toward a double-dip, but so is Europe. New data out Tuesday show even Europe's strongest core economies slowing to a crawl. We're on the cusp of a global recession. Policymakers be warned: Austerity is the wrong medicine. Sen. Harry Reid: Affordable Care Act Helps Women When I was a kid, I thought I was a lot tougher than I was. My mother taught me that if you acted like you could handle yourself, then you could. But sometimes that meant enduring unnecessary pain. Dr. Andrew Weil: Are You an Adult Picky Eater? Everyone prefers some foods over others, but some adults take this tendency to an extreme. These people tend to prefer the kinds of bland food they may have enjoyed as children. Vivian Diller, Ph.D.: Midlife: What Goes Down Must Come Up I find that for men and women in their 40s, 50s and 60s, who weather the physical and emotional changes inherent to this life stage, some things actually get better, not worse. Robert Scheer: The Biggest Little Hypocrite in Texas It is unfathomable that yet another Texas blowhard governor has emerged as a front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination. The persistent appeal of the mythology of Texas as a model for the nation defies the lessons of logic and experience.

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