Five Best Ideas of the Day: September 11

1. National service is a critical American value that has the power to unite us.

By Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates in Time

2. The challenge for America’s strategy against ISIS isn’t our military might. It’s the will of our partners in Iraq and Syria.

By Jeff Shesol in the New Yorker

3. After a decade of urban violence, blacks in America report PTSD symptoms at the same rate as veterans of our last three wars.

By Lois Beckett in Essence

4. Municipal buses move more than 5 billion people annually. Converting them to electric power would slash carbon emissions dramatically.

By Daniel Gross in Slate

5. To gather valuable health data from the poor, texting survey questions yields impressive results.

By the University of Michigan Health System

The Aspen Institute is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C.