No single grant maker even one with pockets as deep as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations can have a lasting impact on the worlds most pressing problems without forming partnerships, Melinda Gates told participants at this years Council on Foundations conference, in Seattle, this week, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports. No single grant maker even one with pockets as deep as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations can have a lasting impact on the worlds most pressing problems without...

Just think about the genius of goi cuon, traditional Vietnamese spring rolls wrapped in soft rice paper you get meat, vegetables and noodles all in one bite. For a cooler day, the house special fried rice (com chien duong chau) was fortifying, an appealing heap of rice, egg, shrimp, bits of sausage and barbecued pork, and scallions. I won't go back to a place if the signature rice noodle soup isn't good, but here, I knew I'd be back as soon as I smelled the steam rising from the...

Speaking of Rice and her effort to slow down any talk of benchmarks, the Democratic oppo-research blog Think Progress reminds us of her January 2007 testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in which she said that the US will not stay married to its Baghdad security plan if the Iraqis don t live up to their own obligations. Strick points out that the growing consensus building within the Senate leadership would be a new bill void of timeless and heavy on benchmarks for the Iraqi...

The near-capacity crowd (many of whom are young enough to know No Doubt only as an expression meaning "without question") was clearly excited to see one of hip-hop's top artists do her stuff, heating The E Center with their bodies and motion to the point where even dragged-along boyfriends, munching on popcorn and pretzels, perspired. It happens when the house lights are shut off, the room is dark and all that can be heard is thousands of voices screaming. The near-capacity crowd (many of...

I retreated from my garden, let the dirty dishes pile up for days, stopped writing or working on what was already written, turned down invitations to lunch and dinner, slept late, and kept telling myself I wasn't a "young un'" anymore and if I could just get a lot of rest I'd be all right. We can hide our heads in the sands of illusion and pretend our president has an IQ higher than a truckload of cabbages, and we can even ignore the flu bug, the clogged sinuses and arteries, and a...