For many people, the contrast of two Washington, D.C., demonstrations within a week of each other last month deserved intense scrutiny as a litmus test on press bias. I would not be one of them, but I would say that a discussion of the coverage afforded the national Women’s March on Saturday, Jan. 21, and Read More …
Category: Blog
These are random thoughts about topics that interest me — including books, rock and roll, philosophy, culture and daily life. I update it whenever the mood strikes me, shooting for at least once a week but often more frequently than that. I welcome your comments on anything I may discuss here and, when appropriate, will reply as promptly as possible.
Objectivity, division and the challenge of trust in the media
Our Opinion page concluded 2016 with a series of editorials focusing on what we see as the state of the free press in America today and worrisome threats it faces. Criticism of the series has come from opposing camps, exemplifying some of the problems we wanted to describe and representing the polarized approaches to political Read More …
Review of God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
I had a bit of a fright reading Rosewater; for, at some point, I found it comparable in approach to the worst novel in the English, or perhaps any, language, Atlas Shrugged. Like those of Ayn Rand, Vonnegut’s characters are one-dimensional caricatures, and the universe in which he places them resembles reality only to the degree that he Read More …
Review of “The Warmth of Other Suns” by Isabel Wilkerson
Isabel Wilkerson here blends narratives of the lives of three distinct Southern blacks with historical sociology to do two things at once – describe and chart what she calls “The Great Migration” of African Americans from the South to the North and West and vividly demonstrate the effects of the migration in human terms. It Read More …
Making a direct connection with local election candidates
With their impact on your property taxes and leadership in your community, local elections can be the most direct opportunity for you to shape your schools and your quality of life. Yet, too often, we’re all distracted by the glare of state and national issues, so that when it comes time to select our town Read More …
Wishes of peace in a year of anger
In the midst of news reports that suggest the world is growing madder by the day, it feels a bit hollow as a news person to wish readers the peace of the season. But I do. Time magazine declared Donald Trump its Person of the Year, but the real story of 2016 was Anger. It Read More …
Review: The Tunnels: Escapes Under the Berlin Wall-and the Historic Films the JFK White House Tried to Kill by Greg Mitchell
The deepest impression this book had on me was the reminder, perhaps the confrontation with the reality, of the soulless repression of Soviet-style communism in the mid-20th century. Mitchell’s narration and his description are not particularly enthralling, but his matter-of-fact manner of laying out the details of the tunnel missions of the early 1960s makes Read More …
Loneliness
I
Requiem for a gadfly, patriot
If you’re in the news business for any length of time, sooner or later, you get to know someone like Rob Sherman. They’re people who delight in working their way under the skin of officialdom and want to make sure you — the writer, the camera, the headline, the link to legitimate public attention — Read More …
Flint, water quality and the duty to identify danger before it becomes a crisis
We don’t mean for you to be alarmed by the results of our reporting on the safety of our water in the suburbs. But it seems pretty clear you ought to be concerned. Whenever disaster or tragedy strikes somewhere in the country, it is natural to ask, “Could it happen here?” Often, we at the Read More …