Klein makes a brief commentary on the mini-resurgence of the public health care option in the W.H. and on Capitol Hill. He reminds us that the irrational politics of health care will likely defeat the advance of the public option in this case as it did before, despite its apparent popularity with the majority of U.S. voters.

Quinones' series and the accompanying video presentation, illustrating the life of addiction led by one young U.S. couple, work together powerfully. The impression is indelible, and I expect the series should leave most readers quite interested in further information about black tar heroin trafficking and addiction, both south and north of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Brooks on the inverse trends of diversification and effectiveness in cultural/governmental/financial leadership. "It is less necessary to be clubbable. It is more important to be smart and hard-working." "[A]mass[ing] technical knowledge[ . . . ] is only marginally related to the skill of being sensitive to context." Diminished social connectedness (in geographical context).

The piece exemplifies Sullivan's consistent struggle to present measured viewpoints on questions that, otherwise, frequently draw only rabid commentary. In fact the content of this commentery belongs primarily not to Sullivan but to the blogger whom he quotes and cites within the column. The argument for a variation of a "truth and reconciliation commission" as a means of discouraging a repetition of the US' disreputable conduct in the course of emasculating the nation of Iraq, is by now familiar. Clearly if it were ever going to happen ww'd have a clearer sense of that by now.

This would be quality journalism if it were the first in an investigative series. All it does is sit there and act scary. It really needs to suggest constructive means by which readers can follow up, especially to check on water quality in locations that are significant to them.

This polling report provides food for constructive thought and debate. It recognizes several of the dimensions of the polling issue under discussion, including the important and interesting issue of age demographics as a differentiator with regard to the impact of "newsprint" news.

The article lacks any claim to be more elevated than a random thought, and by no means an original one. (Perhaps the - unseen online - newsprint context in which it appeared in the CS Monitor might have lent it some pith.) It almost reads like Regan's own internal memo to CS Monitor management - "Hey, in case you haven't noticed, ink's not selling any more, even in pdf form. Can we please move into the second half of this decade now?" The Monitor's embrace of alternative journalism or whatever one calls it has been lukewarm at best, as though everyone was huddled in the nave of the Mother Church awaiting the second coming of Gutenberg.

This opinion piece is a good example of a lack of sound editorial policy on the part of Arab News. Ramzy Baroud has little patience for what he has seen and heard of the new U.S. Administration's Israel/Gaza/West Bank initiatives and pronouncements. But he may not realize that his judgment is highly premature since U.S. policy in this regard always begins with strong public support for Israel during any conflict. Obama would have been naive indeed to have launched a new U.S. initiative in any other way. To have done so would have been to risk the perceptions of inconstancy and wavering in its commitment to the Jewish state, and so potentially to have further destabilized the current conflict in Gaza. What Mr. Baroud ... More »

It is a succinct, balanced, and fact-based article that sticks to its purpose: describing the gay community's [actually its leaders'] frustration with what appears to be a decision that may not have been well considered by Obama and his people.

This piece presents a sweeping generalization -- that life in Cuba is at least as miserable as it was before Castro -- but provides only anecdotal evidence that this is the case. Facts and statistics presented do a good job of quantifying Cuba's current day status vis a vis other nations in the Americas, presenting a mixed picture. But the gist of the article is clearly pessimistic ("por que?") and one would hope the writer would have some sounder socio-historical evidence to support that view. It's a very brief article to make such a bold point, and unfortunately does not support its thesis convicingly. (As much as anything, it feeds on and reinforces the negative expectations of US readers with regard to the Cuban economy.)