I've been thinking a lot, as the decade ends, about things that have changed since 2000. In particular, I've been thinking a lot about changes in American culture.  Sure, there are the really big things one cannot ignore, but there's a cultural change I just can't seem to get past: the changes in American TV over the last decade.  After reading Emily Nussbaum's wonderful piece titled When TV Became Art, the first decade of the…

John Adams, the award-winning miniseries about the second president of the United States, was on SBS last night. It’s a powerful telling of the life of John Adams, his involvement in the founding of the United States, and his time as President of the United States.

It's not unusual for the press to decide upon a narrative and stick to it.  President Obama has many times been a beneficiary of this practice.  But after his trip to China, Obama found the press had chosen a decidedly negative narrative: that the trip was pointless, and that it achieved nothing.

As the Senate voted for cloture on the health care reform debate over the weekend, it's probably a good time to consider a really important column from Bruce Bartlett on the hypocrisy of some members of the Republican party. 

There was a fascinating article in the New Yorker a few months ago about Cameron Todd Willingham, a man from Texas convicted of deliberately lighting the fire that killed his three daughters. The article outlines the lengthy process by which several people were convinced of his innocence, then proceeded to fight for him.