Category Archives: Current Affairs

Good piece in the National Journal by Jonathan Rauch: In Arabic, “Internet” Means “Freedom.” Intellectual isolation and censorship precludes the spread of Enlightenment ideas and basic liberal values in the Middle East. The internet is helping to break down those walls. I would love to support an effort to connect young people from universities in the Middle East with young people in the U.S. to support the free spread of ideas using the web as the conduit.

I’m a loyal reader of The Economist. Clive Cook has an excellent piece in the National Journal on why The Economist has been so successful – both as a journalistic powerhouse and as a business. There’s a similar article in the TimesOnline (UK) which discusses the state of the magazine — er, "newspaper" as it likes to call itself — as its top editor is stepping down.

There are many reasons why The Economist rocks: single text for a global, intelligent audience. Topics span politics, business, books, and science. Consistently serious and hilarious coverage of the world. On and on and on. But for me, one reason trumps all: you can’t pigeonhole the magazine’s bias.

Most know The Economist as right-of-center since it’s staunchly free-market, pro-capitalist. Yet they endorsed John Kerry, they support abortion rights, etc.

People who haven’t changed their mind in 15 years or show no signs of confliction on tough topics are not very interesting. For me, there’s nothing more boring than hearing about some news event or product release or whatever and you know exactly where a commentator/pundit is going to stand. I know that Paul Krugman will always despise anything Bush does economically. So I don’t read him. I know that certain Mac aficionados are going to say the latest from Microsoft is always evil. So I don’t read them.

I want to read people who are guided by an underlying intellectual philosophy, not ideology. I want people who admit newfound uncertainties about positions they’ve held for a decade.

Franklin Foer has been named editor of the New Republic. I love all these young 30 somethings taking over. TNR is not one of my top reads, but I read it when I can. I think daily newspapers are in big trouble from a business model perspective, but long form journalism and magazines will endure the next decade just fine, I think, unless someone invents screens that don’t strain eyes. I

‘d love to write for TNR and its kin someday.

…Larry Summers resigned from Harvard today. Never I have seen so many references to a single person’s brilliance. The man’s intellect clearly soars above most. Yet, as I’ve said repeatedly on this blog, raw intelligence means much less than emotional intelligence for leading/accomplishing anything. And by the way, just because I say this, doesn’t mean I’ve mastered it. A glaring weakness of mine is valuing intellectual vigor above emotional connection.

Related Post: Nice Guys vs. Intimidators in Leadership

Francis Fukuyama has a great essay in today’s NYT Magazine which describes how neoconservatism came to drive the Iraq war and the current state of the school. I’m not a neoconservative, but I have sympathy with some of its principles, and agree with Fukuyama that it is in shambles. It’s rare to find a tightly written, relatively brief essay that at once draws on history and the current state of Iraq to outline what’s next for one sector of intellectual and political life.