The Failure of Filters — Why We’re Getting Dumber by the Hour

Knowing what’s going on, what new ideas are shaping the culture, in the arts, in technology, in ideas in general seems to me to be an essential part of really being alive, of getting all that life has to offer. The great challenge for me is in finding out how to ferret out what’s new and valuable. […]

Michiko Kakutani Is Destroying The Fabric Of American Culture

Nothing compares with Tom Friedman, who plays the Times as his personal Wurlitzer. When Tom has an idea, a Big Idea, the Times shakes with excitement and the World listens. Here’s how it starts, quietly, innocently: In a column from Mexico on April 1, 2004, Friedman waits until paragraph #4 before he slips it in. Just look at this remarkable level of craft at work: “Mexico’s problem, in a nutshell, is this: The world is flat — or at least getting flatter.” Here indeed is the master at work. […]