| The death of a child: A parent's worst nightmare Dec 22nd 2012, 01:32 We are stunned. We are outraged. As a nation, we are questioning laws on gun control, questioning how such a thing can happen. These are all appropriate responses to the tragedy in Newtown, Conn. But there is a repercussion to all this that will continue long after laws are changed and life, unbelievably, gets back to normal: the grief of the parents of the 20 children killed. How many times have I heard that this is a parent's worst nightmare? As someone who has lived the nightmare of losing a child, I know that the enormous hole left behind remains forever. Read full article >>   |  | Civilians running the Afghan war? Dec 22nd 2012, 01:28 "Civilians held Petraeus's ear in the war zone" [front page, Dec. 19] questioned the access and influence Gen. David H. Petraeus accorded to civilians while he was running the Afghan war. As a civilian who has acted as an informal adviser on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, I think it is critical to stress that a wide range of commanders, as well as senior Defense and State Department officials, sought advice from a broad range of civilians — many of whom did not support the campaign plans then in use, call for more troops or emphasize military over civilian options. The commanders did so because they realized they needed different perspectives, challenges to conventional wisdom and help in looking at the political, civil and economic aspects of the war. Read full article >> | | Women in the rabbinate Dec 22nd 2012, 01:24 Conservative Rabbi Scott Perlo ["Why all the kvetching about female rabbis?" Outlook, Dec. 16] and I are living in different universes. Since 1985, I have served a large Reform congregation in Washington, always with a female rabbinic colleague. Now there are three female rabbis (and one male) and a female cantor serving our congregation. Yet I barely can remember a disparaging comment; in my universe, we passed that milestone a generation ago. Read full article >> | | Make smokers pay Dec 22nd 2012, 01:24 Regarding the Dec. 17 editorial "Demonizing welfare recipients": Since "large majorities of the public" "don't want to subsidize somebody's drug addiction," the answer is not to drug-test welfare recipients but to make smokers pay more of the $300 billion in costs they impose each year largely on nonsmokers in the form of higher taxes (for Medicare, Medicaid, etc.) and inflated health insurance premiums — a number that dwarfs the costs imposed by illicit drugs and the amount smokers pay in excise taxes. Read full article >> | | Reducing U.S. risk helps terrorists Dec 22nd 2012, 01:19 Buried in the scathing critique of the State Department's performance during the attack on its consulate in Benghazi is a description of what may become the "new normal" in hot spots abroad — where U.S. diplomats cannot rely on local security and must consider "when to leave and perform the mission from a distance." Read full article >>   | | When fatherless young offenders are fathers themselves Dec 22nd 2012, 01:17 Thousands of children are growing up in this city without fathers. Yes, many single mothers, also large in numbers, are raising their children to lead productive lives. But not having a responsible father around to help a child deal with life's challenges has consequences for families and the community. That's especially true with boys. Learning how to become a man is hard when there's no man around to learn from. Read full article >>   | | Blame the killing machines: guns Dec 22nd 2012, 01:17 In 1989, Esquire magazine assigned me to write a story about the aftermath of an atrocity that January in Stockton, Calif. Patrick Purdy, a 26-year-old drifter and alcoholic, opened fire on the playground of Cleveland Elementary School during recess with a legally purchased AK-47 assault rifle, killing six children and wounding 29 others. He then put a legally purchased 9 mm semiautomatic pistol to his head and killed himself. Read full article >>   | | Rewriting history on the filibuster Dec 22nd 2012, 01:16 Ideas are not responsible for the people who believe them, but when evaluating Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's ideas for making the Senate more like the House of Representatives, consider the source. Reid is just a legislative mechanic trying to make Congress's machinery efficiently responsive to his party's progressivism. And proper progressives think that the Constitution, understood as a charter of limited government, is unconstitutional. Read full article >>   | | The Kennedys through a lens, lightly Dec 22nd 2012, 01:16 In today's world of social media, where everyone's every little thing is on display, it is sometimes difficult to recall a time when exhibitionism wasn't ubiquitous and was, in fact, not admired. Such are the inevitable thoughts upon perusing Kitty Kelley's lovely new book — yes, lovely — about John F. Kennedy as seen through the eyes, or more accurately, the lens of her friend, photojournalist Stanley Tretick. Read full article >>   | | "The Big Screen: The Story of the Movies" by David Thomson Dec 22nd 2012, 00:19 The ritual of movie-going has been notoriously corroded of late. Between astronomical prices, multiplexes that resemble cattle lots more than theaters, and talking, texting and tweeting audience members — not to mention the often sub-par products they're ignoring on the screen — sensitive film buffs are often tempted simply to stay home and read a good book. Read full article >>   | | Geronimo by Robert M. Utley Dec 22nd 2012, 00:18 Geronimo famously eluded the United States Army during his lifetime, and he has been dodging historians since his death. Robert M. Utley, a distinguished chronicler of the West and author of a biography of Sitting Bull, is the latest to make the chase, and he has succeeded as well as anyone will. Read full article >>   | | "Oddly Normal: One Family's Struggle to Help Their Teenage Son Come to Terms with His Sexuality" by John Schwartz Dec 22nd 2012, 00:13 One of the best things about John Schwartz's memoir/guidebook, "Oddly Normal," is how remarkably dated it should be in 20 years. Subtitled "One Family's Struggle to Help Their Teenage Son Come to Terms With His Sexuality," it provides a candid snapshot of many assumptions and truths that some gay teens face, circa 2010. It is, in the author's words, "a book about raising a gay child in the age of Tyler Clementi, Proposition 8, and 'Glee' " — which is different in many ways from where we were in 1990 (pre-Matthew Shepard, pre- Lawrence v. Texas , pre-"Will and Grace"). Read full article >>   | | The difference between losses and gains Dec 21st 2012, 22:02 I used to believe that The Post's headlines denoted what the accompanying article was all about, but not now. A Dec. 8 headline in the Business section stated, "U.S. incurs losses over small-bank bailouts." Four paragraphs down, we learn that these losses totaled $241 million. But six paragraphs later we find the following, "These firms also paid $307 million in dividends." Should not your headline have read, "TARP bailout programs yielded a $66 million gain"? Read full article >>   | | An online subscription plan Dec 21st 2012, 22:02 Regarding the ombudsman's Dec. 16 column, "Reconsidering a paywall at The Post" [Sunday Opinion]: All newspapers and magazines need to charge in order to pay their staffs. But one of the Internet's blessings is the ability to read everything. So why don't newspapers get together and sell joint subscriptions? I'd jump at an offer that gave me The Post, the New York Times, the choice of one big-city daily and two newsmagazines. I used to read Haaretz occasionally, but not enough to pay for it. Joint subscriptions could fill the needs of both omnivorous readers and newspaper publishers. Read full article >>   | | A market's geographic challenge Dec 21st 2012, 21:59 I was displeased with the negative tone of Clinton Yates's Dec. 14 The Root DC column, "Market needs more than a name change," on the struggles of Yes Organic Market in Ward 8. Yates chided Gary Cha for engaging in a "transparent cash grab" that supposedly was obvious to us east-of-the-river folks who avoided shopping there. That sentiment may be true of the resident quoted, but I can tell you it is not shared by many. Read full article >>   | |
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