Thomas Friedman
As a tech reporter, I end up going to a lot of conferences. Illustrious figures from science and business gather for panels, keynotes, luncheons, and “fireside chats.” Mostly, they’re just glorified networking events that allow media outlets and trade organizations to score a few headlines and bolster sagging budgets. READ MORE >>
Chief Justice John Roberts’ decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act “individual mandate” stirred fury on the Right and leery relief on the Left. But the stunning outcome produced bipartisan agreement on one basic point: Roberts’ Solomonic solution—endorsing conservatives’ claim that the mandate breached Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce, but saving the provision itself as a tax—was a politically driven improvisation. READ MORE >>
Obama's Europe Troubles, Thomas Friedman’s Self Indulgence, and Women with Guns: Today's TNR Reader
Editor’s Note: We’ll be running the article recommendations of our friends at TNR Reader each afternoon on The Plank, just in time to print out or save for your commute home. Enjoy! Thomas Friedman’s columns are not just self-indulgent. They are an assault on humanity. Jacobin Magazine | 7 min (1,717 words) READ MORE >>
Not Fade Away
Before 2013 begins, catch up on the best of 2012. From now until the New Year, we will be re-posting some of The New Republic’s most thought-provoking pieces of the year. Enjoy. READ MORE >>
Rule of Three
The Internet Intellectual
Public Parts: How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way We Work and Live By Jeff Jarvis (Simon & Schuster, 263 pp., $26.99) READ MORE >>
Worst Words in Washington
The Cult: The Twisted, Terrifying Last Days of Assad’s Syria
Many Damascenes these days prefer to watch the government-run TV stations. Elsewhere, the news is bad. The local channels, with local announcers, speaking in proper Syrian Arabic, are often sweet. Often the broadcasters on these stations are beautiful young women. They smile a lot. Their channels say that in some outlying districts, vandals and religious fanatics have moved in, and have had to be removed by the army. But now all is back to normal. READ MORE >>
Is Pie-Throwing Ever Morally Justifiable?
To Compete Globally, Cluster Locally
Is globalization fraying the ties that bind? A recent article in the Economist suggests that links between companies in several of Italy’s revered industry clusters—geographic concentrations of interconnected companies—are weakening as the companies shift their market strategy in the face of fierce competition from low-cost rivals in emerging markets like China. READ MORE >>
