Many French people referred to the January attacks on the offices of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and other sites as their 9/11. As awful as that time was, it was not a 9/11. Seventeen people died that day. The Sept. 11, 2001, assaults on New York and Washington left nearly 3,000 dead, having demolished […]
Froma Harrop
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U.S. can be choosy about energy sources
The Obama administration has finally passed judgment on the Keystone XL pipeline, and it’s a thumbs-down. The environmental arguments against it have always been impeccable. But it took America’s turn toward energy independence to cut down the economic case for it. Americans still need oil, but we can choose to reject the dirtiest kind. A […]
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Traditional model of employment dying
Robots make the perfect employee. They don’t complain, they don’t get sick, and, as of this writing, they don’t have babies. When robots can do the job in today’s economy, they get the job. When they can’t, a human must suffice. You still need a human to make the perfect latte, ask security questions at […]
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A word or two about procrastination
I came upon this article on procrastination and saved it for “later reading.” Ha-ha-ha. Procrastination jokes are one of the best ways of putting off work. The article’s headline reads, “To Stop Procrastinating, Start by Understanding the Emotions Involved.” It appears in The Wall Street Journal, a good source of pointers on getting us gerbils […]
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Cities learning how to keep college grads
The population of New Orleans fell 7.3 percent after Hurricane Katrina, but guess what. NOLA now has 40,000 more college graduates than before the disaster. From 2000 to 2013, Detroit lost over 160,000 residents but amazingly added nearly 167,000 college graduates. It’s an urban myth that population loss and brain drain go hand in hand. […]
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Fantasy football — a new way to lose
They worship at the high altar of football. They’re everywhere. I don’t give a fig about football, but the cult surrounds me. In the offseason, the devotees were stomping the floor over Tom Brady and a football’s air pressure. They demanded to know my opinion on the matter. That I had none amazed them. The […]
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For GOP, it’s political warfare all the time
There is a time for war and a time for peace, according to the book of Ecclesiastes and The Byrds. In the contest to replace John Boehner as speaker of the House, the Republican candidates chose to sell themselves as full-time political warriors. Forget about the national interest. Their job, as they have framed it, […]
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Murderers utilize the dark side of social media
The first details about the mass killer at the community college in Roseburg, Oregon, were that he was a young man, lonely and full of hate. Of course he was. They all are. Lonely young men full of hate have been with us since there were lonely young men. The modern phenomenon of their acting […]
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Drug price gouging taken to new heights
If Hollywood had created Martin Shkreli as the monster from Wall Street, we would have accused it of unfair characterization. But Shkreli — a 32-year-old hedge fund director in T-shirts, dabbler in the punk rock music world — has saved Tinseltown the trouble. Shkreli has also done the American people a service by showing in […]
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Tea party leaders would punish entire U.S.
Yogi Berra is no longer around, but one of his witticisms — “It’s deja vu all over again” — has never been more apt. This time, though, it’s not at all funny. All over again, the hard right is threatening a government shutdown. All over again, the American people face the prospect of collapsing consumer […]