Some stuff that doesn’t matter and some stuff that does

Some stuff that doesn’t matter and some stuff that does

I was just thinking about what matters and what doesn’t matter, because, being human, we get it wrong a lot. It doesn’t matter whether the new Yahoo/AOL product from Verizon is called “Oath.” What matters is if Verizon can take a bunch of lame and aging properties and make them relevant again. If they don’t,…

The inflamed rhetoric of the Trump justification for bombing Syria
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The inflamed rhetoric of the Trump justification for bombing Syria

President Trump, outraged by the use of nerve gas on civilians, launched 59 cruise missiles at the airfield that Bashar al-Assad uses in Syria. Then he made a statement justifying the action. It’s a case study in Trumpspeak — does the pileup in intensifying adjectives and adverbs make a statement more persuasive, or more suspect? In my…

Trump statement on Syria chemical weapons: blame but no solutions

Trump statement on Syria chemical weapons: blame but no solutions

Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad apparently used nerve gas in the Syrian war, killing civilians. The situation there remains impossible. Trump’s blame-filled statement can’t change that. The six-year multilateral conflict in Syria features a murderous dictator backed by Russia, Islamic State terrorists, and “moderate” rebel factions backed by the U.S. — with civilians caught in the middle. It…

What’s really inside Donald Trump’s Executive Order on immigration
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What’s really inside Donald Trump’s Executive Order on immigration

What did President Trump actually say in his executive order on immigration? To find out, I did a close reading. I found no ban on Muslims entering the country, but I did find lots of other juicy bits, like an endorsement for letting any jurisdiction — like, say, Alabama or Dallas — restrict who can live…