News Companion

This past week, there was a well-attended public forum at the Arts Council of Princeton, entitled "Civics, Humanities, and News Media i...

The Titanic sank 100 years ago today. The following was first published on the April 12 Trenton Times opinion page under the title, "Ea...

A January 24 article in my local paper announces that the U.S. Dept. of Transportation is imposing new regulations on airlines to protect co...

Tom Brokaw came to Princeton University December 6 to give a talk, built around his new book, "The Time of Our Lives: A conversation ab...

The traditional coverage of western wildfires offers a prime example of how consumers of the news are not informed about the underlying forc...

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, in an attack on regulation of light bulbs, recently resurrected old complaints about low-flow toilets. In a G...

"Broke ...broke ....broke ....broke ...broke... "      That's my favorite quote from the Stewart/Colbert rally on the Washingt...

I used to think of government's regulation of the business sector as similar to the role of referees in sports. Government lays down the...

Now that we've been told that some financial institutions and automobile companies are "too big to fail", leading to vast bail...

There's no lack of examples these days of how a lack of government oversight can be a business's worst enemy. Seems like anti-regula...

One of government's ongoing problems can best be understood by cleaning up your kitchen. Nobody else is home; the kitchen counter is lit...

To bring about the big changes necessary to spare us from the worst prospects of global warming, we naturally look to big ideas and new tech...

It will be no surprise if today's voter turnout surpasses all records. When things go so wrong, as they have in the last eight years, pe...

The following was written in 2004, during the George W. Bush administration.  The Dark Side of the Reagan Legacy One factor that has le...

Guts, Blinking and the Work Ethic George W. Bush, it is said, likes to trust in his gut feeling. Sarah Palin believes the test of a good l...

Toilets don't normally come up in conversation. The last time they were in the news was back in 1997, when the federal government passed...

When you're driving, do you wear a seatbelt, or do you leave it off and trust that God will save you if there's an accident? Over th...

Today's headline in the NY Times, "81% in Poll Say Nation Is on the Wrong Track," provides as good an excuse as any to begin a...

Imagine, oh jaded ones, the following scenario: A government employee is being interviewed on a radio talk show, and fields a call from a li...