Do you really want to travel the world that much?

June 26, 2019

Hypertourism has become the curse of desirable places all over the world. It refers to the swarms of tourists who clog the plazas and narrow streets of prized cultural destinations — Florence, Venice, Barcelona, Prague and others. Party cities, such as Amsterdam, where both prostitution and marijuana are mostly legal, draw especially low-quality tourists. But locals suffering under hypertourism everywhere endure the spectacle of drunken tourists urinating in public. And what about the visitors who are well-behaved and just want to expand their cultural horizons? Are they having ...

Likability: Never underestimate it

June 25, 2019

Lynne Agress The Baltimore Sun As we near the 2019 Democratic debates, I clearly remember one January 2008 Democratic presidential debate in New Hampshire — the site of the headline making exchange between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. To re-cap, the debate moderator asked Clinton whether she thought she had enough personal appeal to win over voters. But before she could answer, Obama broke in saying, “You’re likable enough.” Evidently, enough voters thought Obama’s comment insensitive, and Clinton won the New Hampshire primary a few days later. Nevertheless, as ...

Chernobyl: Who owns the risks

June 25, 2019

A recent book “Midnight in Chernobyl” and an HBO miniseries on Chernobyl have brought to light the nuclear power plant disaster that took place 33 years ago. Interestingly, the way the bureaucrats of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics dealt with the catastrophic risk is precisely the opposite of how United States bureaucrats deal with it. How each group handles risk is affected by whether or not they “own” the risks. Let me explain. The “socialism” of the USSR refers to the state owning the means of production. In this case, the USSR owned the nuclear power plants ...

Monument to journalists a vital reminder

June 25, 2019

David Dreier The Baltimore Sun This week marks the first anniversary of the deadliest assault against journalists in U.S. history. On June 28, 2018, a gunman opened fire at the offices of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Md., killing five and injuring two. We will always remember Rob Hiaasen, Wendi Winters, Gerald Fischman, John McNamara and Rebecca Smith, as well as the brave women and men who survived the attack and immediately went back to work serving their community. These deaths are not isolated incidents. Every year, hundreds of journalists are attacked, imprisoned ...

New York Times’ Sulzberger is right (and wrong)

June 25, 2019

I never thought I would write this, but the publisher of The New York Times, A.G. Sulzberger, is right. Sulzberger wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal in response to President Trump’s claim that his newspaper committed “treason” by publishing a story about U.S. efforts to compromise Russia’s power grid should Moscow again try to meddle in U.S. elections. The Times says it consulted National Security officials who raised no objections to its publication. It is one thing for the president to criticize sloppy, inaccurate and biased reporting by the media, including The ...

‘At least there was some civility’

June 25, 2019

Critics of Joe Biden are falling over themselves in a rush to castigate the former vice president — and current front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination — for his latest so-called “gaffe.” Some of them are even Democrats. His sin: He waxed nostalgic, as many of us old men do, at a New York fundraiser last week about a time when the opposing parties went after each other tooth and nail, as Washington politicians do, but unlike with today’s polarized slugfests and gridlock, they also managed to find areas of compromise and pass serious legislation. He might ...