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The Main Item You Should Read About the GOP's Ames 'Straw Poll'
It's this one, from Meta War Room, about the "results" we'll get from Iowa this weekend and the light they shed on the race for the Republican nomination and America's larger political dramas.Read the...
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Members of the New Super-Committee: Don't Take the Pledge!
A reader sends in this quite reasonable suggestion about the members of the new 12-person "super committee" that is supposed to work out a budget-and-deficit deal by Thanksgiving time:>>People...
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Three Videos About China
Or, two videos and an interesting photo.1) This is why I love China: a video of a young woman who finds an innovative answer to the parking problems engendered by the nonstop increase in the number of...
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America Suffers When People Quit Moving Up
This post is part of our forum on Don Peck's September story, "Can the Middle Class Be Saved?" Read Don's debate introduction here.Let me kick off my part of the discussion here with a theme that is...
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David Cameron, Meet Hu Jintao
In my article in the current issue (subscribe!) about this spring's abortive "Jasmine Protests" in China, I mention how hard the Chinese authorities cracked down on social media, as a way of thwarting...
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The GOP Debate
I only saw the last 20 minutes, so I have no sense of the overall flow. But that was enough to notice:- Michelle Bachmann, even when given a second chance, seemed genuinely to believe that the federal...
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On Those Beijing Transport Videos
A foreign (ie, non-Chinese) reader living in Beijing writes about yesterday's wonderful video of a young woman inventing a parking space for herself, and the less wonderful prospect of throngs fighting...
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On the Off-Chance You Have Not Seen Stewart-v-Kelly
Please watch it when you can. This is as powerful a demonstration of the limited role of "reason," and the much deeper role of first-hand personal experience, in shaping views on public issues as you...
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Catching Up With Language Change
It's been a few days since I wondered, on the basis of a fabulous pre-World War II film clip about San Francisco, why you never heard modern Americans speaking in the formal, stentorian tones so...
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The View from 2500 Feet
I mentioned ten days ago a trip my wife and I were making from Maine to the DC area in a little plane, with a teaser that she would be doing a fuller report about what we saw and why we did it. (Below:...
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If You Read One 'Serious' Newspaper Article This Weekend...
... well, that's not bad for mid-August. But please let it be this one, by Jackie Calmes in today's New York Times, about the economic and political consequences of the House GOP's anti-deficit push....
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The Iowa Circus, Pro and Con (Updated)
Pro: I argued a few days ago that the Ames Straw Poll is of virtually no use in actually choosing a president, which I still believe. (Also here.) But Garance Franke-Ruta on our site has done a...
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Local News: Email Hiatus
If you've sent me an email in the past six or seven weeks that required more than an instant's thought to answer, or asked for any action on my part, odds are that I haven't replied. "Yet." This I...
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Today's News Out of China: The Dalian 'PX' Protests
I'll just note this event, with pointers toward more extensive coverage:In my current article about this year's political crackdowns in China, I mention the argument that China's government, despite...
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Is America Hardwired for Widening Inequality?
This post is part of our forum on Don Peck's September story, "Can the Middle Class Be Saved?" Read Don's debate introduction here.I'd like to shift the discussion slightly. Now that we've approached...
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I Am a Loyal Gmail User, but This Is Pretty Damned Funny
An online ad for Microsoft's Office 365, mocking "The Gmail Man" for his all-directions intrusiveness. ("He's got his nose in every colon...") In case you haven't seen it already, worth a look. This is...
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Back to Air France 447: Who Was at the Controls?
Long ago, before I got diverted onto other duties and themes, I posted a variety of theories about the Air France 447 crash in 2009, including the new info provided by the discovery of the "black box"...
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3 Points on Rick Perry
1) Until I saw clips of him in the past two or three days, I hadn't realized how much watching and seeing Perry is just like having George W. Bush back in our living rooms. Maybe this will be an...
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The Latest Terrorism Non-Menace: Pilot Potty-Break Attacks
As I pointed out during a controversy last month, The Atlantic has lots of writers with lots of views, and none of us stands guard over others' opinions. I agree with most of what Damien Ma says on our...
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Reasons to Doubt the Middle Class Can Be Saved
This post is part of our forum on Don Peck's September story, "Can the Middle Class Be Saved?"I will end my contribution here on an atypically--at least for me--downcast note about the likely...
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