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Back on the Road
I've decided that when heading off on odd reporting or other projects, as I've done in the past two weeks and will again through this summer, I will try to do periodic brief check-ins, rather than just...
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Why You Should Read More Than 1 Newspaper, From Milwaukee to Hong Kong
From yesterday's NYT and WSJ, on the latest revelations about Cardinal Timothy Dolan, now of New York, during his period as archbishop of Milwaukee:In case you can't make it out, the NYT headline says,...
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Doug Engelbart in his Prime
As you've heard, the tech-industry visionary Douglas Engelbart has died, at age 88. I met him only a few times and have no special standing to comment on his passing. But on the eve of our nation's...
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Independence Day in D.C.
The best thing about the Palisades-MacArthur neighborhood in DC is the annual Fourth of July parade down MacArthur Boulevard. I offer today's snapshots as part of the long "the way we live now"...
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What to Read About the San Francisco Airport Crash
I left Washington as news was still filtering in about the Asiana Airlines short landing/crash at SFO today, and I am composing this while on a flight to San Diego, without knowing the full story --...
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Professional Pilots on the San Francisco Crash
Let's say it again: after an airline disaster, it often takes a very long time to figure out exactly what went wrong. In part that is because in most of the world airline travel is now so...
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Overnight Update on Asiana 214
As mentioned earlier, first-round information about an airplane crash is often inaccurate. That is proving to be the case this time too. Here are some second-round reports, a day and a half after the...
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A Note From the Road
I am reminded of a reality of the reporting life: We think of this as the always-connected age. Indeed, if you'd gone away to Mars eight years ago, and just suddenly been plunked down in any American...
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Does the Latest Google Chrome Break Offline Gmail?
My hypothesis is that the latest Chrome does break offline Gmail, based on the following experimental evidence:Act One: About eight hours ago, as noted in a choleric-themed dispatch, I observed that I...
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Confucius in the Cockpit, and Other Items to Read, and Ignore, on Asiana 214
The investigation goes on, it will take a while before all the facts are in, and so on. In the meantime, here is a handy triage guide on what to read today:1) The flying professors. One day after the...
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Another Useful Video on the San Francisco Crash
Let me start by saying that the static screenshot above (not clickable) and the embedded video below, from which it comes, are not about Asiana flight 214 and what did or did not happen to it.But the...
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If You'd Like a Good, Clean Explanation of the Filibuster Disaster ...
... then I recommend this piece today in the WaPo by political scientist Jonathan Bernstein. Both parties have a role in the dysfunction/fecklessness swamp that is the modern Senate, Bernstein says....
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Not a Filibuster Problem, a Nullification Problem
I mentioned last night, just before a surreal immersion in Sharknado, some of the reasons to be concerned about a governance system many of whose members are uninterested in or actively hostile to the...
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False Equivalence Watch: Another Strong Contender
(Please see update below.) It's from today's NYT, in the form of an unfortunate account of why so little actual legislation is making its way through Congress:The chaos reflects the reality that...
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Here's Some Good News About China, the Environment, and California
OK, there is plenty of bad news on all three of those fronts, and this development goes only so far. But it's positive, and it's creative -- and, from my parochial perspective, it also ties together a...
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'20 Feet From Stardom': Go See It
[My wife and I and a friend went to this movie last night, and in my enthusiasm I hammered out the item below as soon as we got home. Then I got distracted by the George Zimmerman outcome. About that,...
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The Impending Senate Vote on Confirming Nominees
For now I'll skip the full parsing of why it is hysterical to use the term "nuclear option" to describe the rule-change Sen. Harry Reid says he will propose soon. Namely, allowing an Administration to...
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Leonard Garment
Through the years when our kids were in junior high and high school, our next-door neighbor in Washington was Leonard Garment, with his wife and their young daughter. That's a picture him in that era,...
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Hal Harvey on 'Fear, Hope, and Climate,' at the Aspen Ideas Festival
I mentioned while the Aspen Ideas Festival was underway that I'd found a session with Hal Harvey, of Energy Innovation, particularly enlightening. The full hour-long video has just gone online, and you...
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Hong Kong, Chrome: 2 Updates and Pentimenti
1) Two weeks ago I shared a photo, via Beijing Cream, of contrasting front-page treatment in the South China Morning Post (which is not run by the Chinese government) and the China Daily (which is) on...
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