Increasing demands for anonymity

One of the most pernicious developments in modern journalism is the number of newspaper reports that feature anonymous sources. Anonymity is allowable and understandable for whistleblowers who risk retaliation for exposing wrongdoing or for victims of crimes or are otherwise in danger but now it is routinely given to high officials who are merely seeking to advance an agenda or are fighting internal turf wars and do not want their fingerprints over it. [Read more…]

Being aware of one’s own faults

I saw the Ben Stiller film Greenberg (2010) recently. It is not your typical Stiller comedy. In fact, it is not a comedy at all, more a drama as he plays a neurotic and self-centered person recovering from a nervous breakdown returning from New York to his roots in California and trying to connect with his old friends and society and having a rough time doing so. [Read more…]

Sexual abuse and cover up in the Orthodox Jewish community

The New York Times has a horrible story about sexual abuse of children in the Orthodox Jewish communities. Rather than bringing the perpetrators to justice, the members of the community turn against the accusers. It is depressingly similar to the way that the Catholic church responded to sexual abuse allegations against its leaders. [Read more…]

The problem for opponents of same sex marriage

As expected, both sides on the same sex marriage issue are treading warily and hopefully after president Obama’s statement that he personally supports it. His supporters are hoping that this statement, although minimal in scope and somewhat belated in timing, will still be sufficient to energize those who have been disillusioned by Obama’s failure to deliver on so many other issues and will lead to full-fledged equality soon. [Read more…]

Robert Caro on Lyndon Johnson

Jon Stewart on The Daily Show had a fascinating interview with the late president’s biographer. Johnson was a complex man, good on civil rights, terrible when it came to Vietnam.

(This clip appeared on May 10, 2012. To get suggestions on how to view clips of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report outside the US, please see this earlier post.)

A question worthy of a Zen master

We have probably all seen someone make a rude silent gesture to another person who could not see it. The question is whether something is rude even if no one sees it. In other words, does an act become rude simply by virtue of the intent of the actor or by the response of the audience? This happens sometimes in intercultural exchanges where a gesture or a statement that is not at all rude in one culture is offensive in another. [Read more…]