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The Most Considerate Thing the Chinese Media Establishment Has Ever Done for Me
Over the years I've often praised China Daily -- the state-controlled, English-language vehicle for the Chinese government's official version of reality -- as my favorite newspaper. Narrowly but...
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Poor Rick Perry: Seriously, How Could This Have Happened?
Regardless of your age or politics, you had to feel bad for Rick Perry last night, during his humiliating, unbelievable-in-real-time, instant-classic "oops!" moment.Two hypotheses from readers. First,...
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On Brain Freezes and the Value of Debates
This year's Republican primary debates have had a more obvious carnival/WWE aspect than in some previous years. A reader argues that this should be seen not as some guilty pleasure but instead as...
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China Daily: It's Not Just for the Watergate Any More
Yesterday I mentioned my satisfaction at discovering that the world's finest newspaper, the China Daily, is now available right in front of the Atlantic's office in the Watergate building in DC. The...
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Is This NYT Op-Ed a Joke? Selling Taiwan to the Bankers of Beijing
My first reaction to today's op-ed in the NYT was that it was some kind of put-on. America owes China a lot of money; officials in Beijing are always mad at officials in Washington for selling weapons...
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More News as Art: Berlusconi Edition
Two and a half years ago -- it seems like a century -- I noted the picture below on the front page of the New York Times and asked which Old Masters painting it brought most distinctly to mind. A...
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A View from Rome on Berlusconi's Forced Downfall
I am as happy as the next person to see the well-deserved end to Silvio Berlusconi's reign in Italy. But I don't think many people can, or should, feel too happy about this second resignation of a...
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Only Good Aspect of the PSU Horror: the Bob Costas Interview
For work reasons, I've been away from the realm of connectivity longer than I anticipated. As a quick re-entry note, before a longer item forthcoming shortly on "the Mormon question" and then some...
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With Mitt's Ascent, We're Back to the 'Mormon Question'
To begin working through the queue of open issues, let's dip once again into the anti-Mormon mailbag. From the Republican Party's point of view, the big news of these past two months is that the...
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Censoring the Internet: It's Not Just for China Any More!
For the record, like nearly everyone else who has thought about the importance of a freely operating Internet to the cultural, political, and economic vibrancy of the United States, I take a dim view...
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Selling Taiwan to Mainland China: The Author Explains His 'Swiftian' Intent
Please see significant UPDATE below.____Last week I made fun of a New York Times op-ed that recommended a grand strategic bargain to resolve several big US-China tensions at once. The Chinese would...
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Digging Back Into the Mormonism Mailbag
Yesterday I posted a very long item about the "Mormon question," a question that keeps gaining salience with the serial self-destruction of each "anyone but Romney" candidate in the GOP field. Since it...
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Now Here Is Something I'm Afraid To Do Myself
My friend Bruce Williams was through 15 years at Microsoft one of the main figures behind the development of Microsoft Flight Simulator. (Yes, I also know and love X-Plane.) For much longer than that...
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'The 2 Most Reasonable People, by far, Are the 2 Mormons'
I won't run this into the ground indefinitely, but of a huge number of interesting letters on the Mormonism front, this one drew my attention today. It is from a prominent Ivy League professor who asks...
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More on 'Selling Taiwan to China': Satire, or Bad Joke?
Last week, the New York Times ran an op-ed proposing a land-for-cash deal: government officials in Beijing would write off America's enormous debt to China, and government officials in Washington would...
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Pepper-Spray Brutality at UC Davis
See numerous UPDATES below. In case you haven't yet seen the YouTube footage of what happened yesterday at UC Davis, here it is. The first minute has the main drama:Â Let's stipulate that there are...
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Today's Gmail Hacking Installment: Protect Your Friends, Too!
As I reported in last month's chronicle of a hacking attack, my wife's Gmail account was taken over a few months ago; all of her correspondence, photos, records, etc from a six-year stretch was zeroed...
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The Moral Power of an Image: UC Davis Reactions
Apart from the updates that a variety of readers sent yesterday about the affectless sadism of a UC Davis policemen, let me mention a few more links and resources:1) Notice the crowd. This is a point I...
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Well, This Is Something: UC President Responds to Pepper Spray
This afternoon the President of the University of California system, Mark Yudof, issued a statement about the pepper-spraying abuse at UC Davis and the baton-beating abuse at UC Berkeley. The oddly...
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UC Davis Update, Featuring 'Catopticon' and Tanks in Small Towns
After previous items here and here, some updates from readers:1) Kristin Stoneking, minister of the UC Davis Christian Association, is the woman seen in a now-famous YouTube video walking alongside UC...
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