There seems to be this sense among even well-meaning Americans that Africa is this black hole of murder and mutilation that can never be fixed, no matter what aid is brought in.

If only women are talking about women's rights, then the issue has failed from the start. If you think about the Holocaust, that wasn't just a Jewish issue. Civil rights weren't just a black issue.

Laws matter, but typically changing the law by itself accomplishes little.

The equivalent of five jumbo jets' worth of women die in labor each day, but the issue is almost never covered.

The way you get leaders to care about issues of conscience is to apply political pressure. It's less a question of persuading leaders directly and more trying to build a social movement that holds their feet to the fire.

Palestinian militancy has accomplished nothing but increasing the misery of the Palestinian people. If Palestinians instead turned more to huge Gandhi-style nonviolence resistance campaigns, the resulting videos would reverberate around the world and Palestine would achieve statehood and freedom.

Random violence is incredibly infectious