Category Archives: Blog

Boeing Blows Another One

Posted on by Leave a comment

Boeing’s Starliner capsule is seen docked to the International Space Station in this zoomed-in view of an image captured by Maxar Technologies’ WorldView-3 satellite on June 7, 2024. (Image credit: Maxar Technologies via NASA)

Update Sept 7, 2024

The Starliner capsule returned to Earth safely from the International Space Station last night, without the two astronauts it took up there in June. Boeing and NASA engineers will review the vehicle’s performance on reentry as they consider the future of the program.

Two astronauts who flew to the International Space Station on Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft will return to Earth next year on a SpaceX “Crew Dragon” vehicle, their planned eight-day test flight turned into a two-thirds of a year ordeal. It is yet another of a long list of failures by the once venerated aerospace company in recent years.

Read more

RIP WCBS Newsradio

Posted on by One comment
WCBS Newsradio Studio

A great radio station is dead, a victim of the ever-changing world of major media. WCBS Newsradio 880, a fixture in New York City for nearly six decades, has said farewell to its loyal listeners, me included. The shutdown on August 26, 2024, of the iconic all-news station marks the end of an era in local news broadcasting.

Read more

The Prosecutor and the Felon

Posted on by One comment

More than a month ago I wrote about the poor performance of President Joe Biden in his June 27th 2024 debate with Donald Trump. Then I put politics aside, frankly, having had enough for a while.

Did I miss anything?

Seriously. If Aaron Sorkin wrote a script describing the events of the last few weeks, nobody would believe it.

Read more

Bob Newhart

Posted on by Leave a comment
Embed from Getty Images

I was in grade school on the south side of Chicago when I began listening to the radio. It was AM in those days, and the format was Top Forty. There were two big stations in Chicago, WLS and WCFL. Since they both played the same music, they differentiated themselves by the personalities of their disc jockeys. One did a lot of comedic bits and spotlighted local comedians. And one of those was Bob Newhart.

Read more

The Supremes Über Alles

Posted on by Leave a comment

In my two previous columns (here and here) I detailed some of the winners and losers resulting from the opinions issued during the Supreme Court term just ended. Now let us look at the biggest winner of them all, the Supreme Court itself. In the last three weeks of the term, the Supreme Court transferred much of regulatory and administrative authority and rulemaking to itself. The federal courts were not authorized and are not equipped to serve as roving regulators of last resort for hundreds of federal agencies. According to the Court:

  • Judges know more about science than scientists.
  • Judges know more about medicine than doctors.
  • Judges know more about structural safety than engineers.
  • Judges know more about climate change than meteorologists.
Read more

The Supreme’s Trainwreck

Posted on by 2 comments

Every summer professors at the nation’s law schools huddle to discuss what, if any, changes should be made to their teaching curriculum after the Supreme Court term just ended. This year, they are scrambling to deal with the train wreck for constitutional law that was the Court’s 2023-2024 term.

I am not a lawyer. But after fifty years as a journalist, I am spending my emeritus years in part teaching a course titled “Media Law and Ethics for Journalists” in the UCLA Extension program. This is a required course in the school’s journalism certificate program and is available online.

Read more

The Supremes Vote Trump

Posted on by 3 comments

The six members of the conservative supermajority of the Supreme Court cast their ballots for Donald Trump on the last day of the court term, then ran out of town to begin their standard three months’ long vacation.

Read more
« Older Entries Recent Entries »