What if Obamacare Software Crashes and Burns? By Michael Barone
Amid all the tussling over the government shutdown and the debt ceiling, a couple of bombshells went off in the blogosphere that may prove of more enduring importance.
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October 18, 2013
October 16, 2013
Fashion Can't Be Tech's New Big Thing By Froma Harrop
I never cared much for the tarted-up Burberry. The upscale British clothier sells its wares at prices for which one might reasonably demand a classic style lasting through several monarchies. But that's just me talking. Burberry is said to have turned its traditionalist label around thanks to fashion innovation. So that's just me talking.
Apple Inc. has hired Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts to apply her fashion smarts to updating its 400 stores and online shopping experience. On this I feel better equipped to predict success or failure.
A number of tech businesses are now getting mixed up with fashion. That's a dangerous trend, for tech.
October 16, 2013
Longing to be a Victim: A Commentary by John Stossel
These days, being seen as a victim can be useful. You immediately claim the moral high ground. Some people want to help you. Lawyers and politicians brag that they force others to help you.
This turns some people into whiners with little sense of responsibility.
October 15, 2013
The Generations Rock On - A Commentary by Froma Harrop
The baby boomers are not dead yet. Someday they will be dead, as will be Generation X, the millennials and all the above' great-great-grandchildren -- barring, of course, a medical cure for mortality.
But you'd think the large cohort born between 1946 and 1964 were already consigned to American memory, given man members' oozy nostalgia and declarations of surrender to younger folk. If your time warp is 1968, that's your call. But 2013 is also an interesting time.
October 15, 2013
What to do About America's Low-Skill Workforce By Michael Barone
Some bad news for America, not on the political front this time, but on what corporate executives call human resources.
October 11, 2013
Risky Business: Corporate Leaders Bemoan Tea Party Default Crisis Created By Their Own Donations By Joe Conason
America's great minds of business and finance have reached a consensus on the government shutdown and worse, the prospect of a debt default: While the latter is worse, both are bad. Those same great minds are well aware how the shutdown came to pass and why default still looms on the horizon, whether next week, next month, or next year.
October 11, 2013
Voters to Politicians: Both Parties are Blundering By Michael Barone
What to make of all the polls on the government shutdown? You know, the ones that say that, to varying degrees, congressional Republicans are being blamed more than Democrats and Barack Obama.
October 11, 2013
Party of Pain: A Commentary by Froma Harrop
Fans of representative democracy know that there are ways to advocate one's beliefs short of threatening and delivering harm to the larger society. It used to be that one could blame the parade of manufactured crises not on the whole Republican Party but on its unruly tea party faction. That's becoming less and less so as what remains of the pragmatic leadership caves in to the extremists' demands.
The GOP's perspective on governing seems to have moved from enlightenment to medieval. It's become the party of pain.
October 10, 2013
Shutdown Theater By John Stossel
Government wants you to play a role in the "shutdown" of the federal government. Your role is to panic.
October 9, 2013
Tyler Cowen's Future Shock: No More Average People By Michael Barone
"This book is far from all good news." So writes Tyler Cowen at the beginning of his latest book, "Average is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of The Great Stagnation."
Cowen is an economist at George Mason University who is generally classified as libertarian and whose interests range far afield. His most recent books include "The Great Stagnation" and "An Economist Gets Lunch" (his advice: skip fancy downtown places, eat at restaurants attached to Pakistani-owned motels).
October 9, 2013
The Grumpy Genius of Marcella Hazan By Froma Harrop
In an era of finicky foodies and celebrity chefs, Marcella Hazan never troubled herself with the rough-and-tumble of branding. Not sexy like Nigella Lawson, not colorful like Emeril Lagasse, not adorable like Rachael Ray -- not even eccentric like Julia Child -- Hazan nailed Italian cooking in a uniquely grumpy way.
October 4, 2013
Drunk and Disorderly: How Republican Extremists Are Shredding Every Principle the GOP Claims to Uphold By Joe Conason
By Washington standards, the current government shutdown is an everyday disaster -- of a kind we are gradually learning to expect whenever the Republican Party controls Congress. The impending breach of the nation's credit, however, when those same Republicans refuse to raise the debt limit to cover the funds they have spent, threatens a singular catastrophe: unpredictable, global, yet entirely avoidable.
October 3, 2013
What America Needs: Abject Defeat of Budget Games By Froma Harrop
Note how tea party politicians routinely start their remarks with "The American people want." And what "the American people want" conveniently coincides with their ideological preferences.
October 2, 2013
If Only Obamacare Had Been Passed With Careful Deliberation By Michael Barone
Many Democrats are genuinely puzzled about Republicans' continuing opposition to Obamacare. It is the law of the land, these Democrats say. Critics should accept it, as critics accepted Medicare.
October 2, 2013
Escaping 'Government' Schools By John Stossel
People say public schools are "one of the best parts of America". I believed that. Then I started reporting on them.
Now I know that public school -- government school is a better name -- is one of the worst parts of America. It's a stultified government monopoly. It never improves.
Most services improve. They get faster, better, cheaper. But not government monopolies. Government schools are rigid, boring, expensive and more segregated than private schools.
October 1, 2013
The Sports Cable Rip-off By Froma Harrop
Not long ago, an important New England Patriots game failed to appear on my cable lineup. There was a way to pay extra for it, but the heck with that.
September 27, 2013
New Report Undercuts Global Warming Alarmists By Michael Barone
Events have failed to fulfill the prophecy. Preachers have suddenly been struck dumb by uncertainty. Believers are understandably nervous and some, under their breath, are abandoning the dogma.
September 27, 2013
In Media Coverage of Clintons, Anonymous Gossip and Fact-Free Cynicism Still Rule By Joe Conason
For the American media -- and especially for "the liberal media" -- even the possibility of a Hillary Clinton presidential nomination, however distant, seems to invite a reversion to bad old habits. During the presidency of Hillary's husband, all too many Washington journalists lived by "the Clinton rules," which meant applying the most cynical interpretation to everything Bill and Hillary Clinton (and anybody associated with them) did or had ever done.
September 26, 2013
What Makes Art Valuable, Really? By Froma Harrop
The amazing story of Pei-Shen Qian has given the art world pause. A struggling Chinese immigrant, Qian painted fake works attributed to the stars of abstract expressionism -- Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, Robert Motherwell.
September 25, 2013
Innovation or Stagnation By John Stossel
Invent something and the first thing that goes through some people's minds -- especially politicians' minds -- is what might go wrong.
3D printers now allow you to mold objects right in your living room, using patterns you find online. It's a revolutionary invention that will save time, reduce shipping costs and be kind to the earth.
But what critics see is: guns! People will print guns at home! Well, sure.
