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Chinese Media Join the Wheeler-Conspiracy Bandwagon
As the investigation into the tragic death of John Wheeler continues, most "normal" news outlets have offered increasing numbers of videos and accounts from people who saw Wheeler walking around,...
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Another View of Juan Williams, Ellen Weiss, and NPR
Yesterday I mentioned that Ellen Weiss, an NPR veteran who in recent years has been its news director, was taking the fall for the rash dismissal of Juan Williams. I made the case for Weiss (whom I...
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A Little Money Can Do a Lot of Good
I don't want to set a precedent of becoming a venue for fund-raising appeals. There are too many deserving candidates. But on a one-time basis, the note I received today from Len Edgerly, of the Kindle...
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Suggestions on 'Civility'
I asked last night for suggestions on what, exactly, it would mean to have a more "civil" tone of political discourse. We all have heard that we're supposed to nicer to one another. But how would we...
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A 'No Regrets' Response to the Tucson Shootings
From a friend who has worked in and around politics for decades: >>It's true, of course, that the causal link, if any, between the heat of political rhetoric and violence against public officials...
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More on e-Readers for the Troops
I mentioned yesterday a surprisingly low-cost project to get e-reader devices (nook, Kindle, Sony Reader, et al) in the hands of U.S. troops in combat zones. Reader Shane Huang adds some context:...
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Data Point: Sources of Violent Political Rhetoric in Recent Years
The Committee Coalition to Stop Gun Violence has prepared a compendium of sources of "violent" or "insurrectionist" political rhetoric in the past two and a half years. It is here. Let's stipulate that...
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The Only Thing I Will Say on the 'Chinese Mother' Debate
I won't link to Amy Chua's notorious "Chinese mothers are best!" essay, since the Internet is already nearing collapse from incoming links to it. I will say that I have assumed all along that the essay...
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More Found Art (Newspaper Dept)
Last week, here and here, I mentioned the "accidental" juxtapositions in front-page or home-page layouts that put stories together in subversive ways. Here are two more. First, from a reader in the...
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If You're in Princeton on Sunday Afternoon
Come by the Princeton Public Library, on Witherspoon Street, at 3pm to see someone I know to be a great speaker (my wife) talk about what I know to be a great book (her Dreaming in Chinese). I mention...
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What We Take for Granted
[See Update below] A friend in Texas writes:>>This was the back page of the sports section in the Dallas paper last Thursday. It really struck me (having lost [a family member] to a 9mm) that...
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A Very Good Question: What Does 'Civility' Mean? Exactly?
A reader writes with this "let's get specific" question: >>Seeing media and op-ed reactions to the Tucson shootings, I was struck by the fact that the vast majority of coverage seems to be along...
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The Cloudy Logic of 'Political' Shootings
After this horrible news from Tucson....... let me amplify something I said half-coherently in a live conversation with Guy Raz on All Things Considered a little while ago. My intended point...
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Why the Tucson Speech Succeeded
Because it was hopeful and positive, even joyous, rather than morose. The standard comparisons of the past four days have been to Ronald Reagan after the Challenger disaster and Bill Clinton after...
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Coming Soon: New Faces in This Space
There are all sorts of things I "plan" to catch up on. Like,- How I finally learned to run again, after thinking that chronic Achilles tendon troubles meant the end to those adventures, plus the...
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Is There Anything To Do About 'Civility'?
This post is plenty long, and even so it covers only a fraction of the responses that have come it. The original question was, does increased "civility" mean anything in practice? Any handy rules of...
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Huntsman 2012: At Last I Sign On
A few weeks ago I pooh-poohed the Newsweek scooplet that Jon Huntsman Jr., the Republican former governor of Utah now serving as U.S. Ambassador to China, was seriously contemplating a run for the...
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Shame on the Kennedys
by John TierneyIn yesterday's Boston Sunday Globe, Bryan Bender reported on the Kennedy family's tight-fisted and iron-willed efforts to keep the official papers of Robert F. Kennedy secret. Those...
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'How to be Civil': The Finale!
Previous installments here and here. The question is whether the even-now ever so slightly fading talk about "civil" discourse means anything in practice. Today we have one more set of suggestions from...
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A Final State Dinner Note
As a last entry in this space before turning things over to the guest team, and while the Hu-Obama State Dinner has not entirely faded from the news cycle, here is an atmospheric note, which I haven't...
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