American Values That Make Grade Sometimes virtue doesn't have to be its own reward. The Cornell men's basketball team just won a pair of big-time basketball games here in the States. If you're not utterly shocked, then you don't know the inside story of college athletics in Ameri..
US Media Needs Wake-Up Call Different societies allow their news media to assume different roles. In most countries the media is subordinated to power, whether of the government or the ruling class. Surprisingly or not, the American model is not widely emulated globally.
Skating on Thin Ice Thankfully, World War Three is over. The big battle between Japan and South Korea is done. The big guns on both sides have stopped smoking and victory has been declared. And somehow miraculously, but in the way almost unique to Asia the war ..
Lost Between Forest and Trees At times my loyalty to my chosen profession of journalism cannot be taken as a given. This is one of those times.
Odd Couplet Gets Even Odder Unless they somehow manage to entwine us in World War Three with China, our friends in Taiwan truly are our friends.
Asian Fusion or Confusion? Not all dinner parties are alike, fortunately. Occasionally you go to one that is not boring.
Toyota Tells the Story LOS ANGELES Once upon a time not so long ago in fact the word ``Toyota" was a synonym for ``quality," even ``reliability." Even that's under recall now.
Truth in Fiction Almost everyone I know wants to be like Spenser. The fictional Boston-based private investigator stood for almost all the right things. This P.I. thought clearly, acted quickly, bonded with the good guys, wasted the bad guys, and always knew the ri..
Bitter Bytes of Data Prelude to World War Three? Not exactly that'd be a rather spectacular example of journalistic inflammation at its worst. So let's put Google's spat with China in perspective.
Will Tiger Escape the Woods? Buddhism is one of the historic religions of Asia and today its influence remains strong throughout the world. One has only to scratch the surface of this philosophical religion that originated in India in the 5th or 6th century B.C. to know that i..
Optimism for 2010 It is said that the optimist peers at the glass and assesses it as half full, and the pessimist gauges it half empty. But the cynic asks: Where's the leak?
Three Insights Into Diplomacy In America, trying to understand what makes other complex countries and cultures tick is usually done in the university classroom, through travel abroad or by following the mass news media. But there's another option that sometimes produces gold: P..
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Obama Needs Fair Criticism LOS ANGELES Foreign-policy performance is anything but the total measure of a president's worth. America's domestic politics, not to mention its elections, are more often than not driven by the forces, and failures, of economics.
Odd Couple on Earth They're both up against it now. They looked over the precipice and gasped at the steepness of the drop. They looked down at a desert of dashed hopes and old skeletons, scraping the bottom of the canyon. This is where a failed U.S.-China relationsh..
Godzilla Sweeps World Series A lot of Hollywood pros believe almost religiously that ``Bull Durham" (1988) offers one of the best opening lines in the history of American movies. You see first a parade of images of past baseball greats and not so greats, as if a promenade of s..
Another Twist From N. Korea LOS ANGELES Like the baby that hurls its rattle out of the crib to grab attention, North Korea has never been known for a subtle diplomatic style.
