Social media must not get carried away

There were few people who didn’t get angry when watching the clips showing how a traffic incident transpired, involving a DJ and his blatant lies. Thanks largely to widespread outrage, he was fired from his job, and problems with the police and auto insurers are looming. Apparently, “justice” was delivered swiftly, which wouldn’t have been the case without the modern-day phenomenon of mobile-phone cameras and closed-circuit TV cameras following virtually everyone almost everywhere. 　As usual, ju

Jan. 18, 2016

[Elizabeth Drew] Sizing up the U.S. election’s opening round

If you find America’s presidential election campaign puzzling, you probably have a better grasp of it than those who are willing to predict an outcome. At this point, with both major parties set to choose their nominees in state-level primary elections or caucuses, there can be no predictions, only informed (or uninformed) guesses. 　The first major contest, in Iowa on Feb. 1, is usually tricky to forecast, because the outcome relies more on organizational prowess than on popularity. The main que

Jan. 17, 2016

Doubts on Obama‘s IS plan spur fear

Here‘s the message President Barack Obama was promoting on foreign policy in his last State of the Union speech Tuesday: “Don’t worry, things are better than you think.”　The rhetoric about our enemies getting stronger and America weaker is “political hot air.” The United States “is (still) the most powerful nation on Earth.” His administration is rooting out and destroying the Islamic State group.　And, even as we focus on destroying IS, we should avoid “over-the-top claims that this is World War

Jan. 17, 2016

Joe Biden to lead new war on cancer

Several months after his son Beau died of brain cancer, Vice President Joe Biden called for an American “moon shot” to cure the disease.　On Tuesday, in his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama named Biden to command the effort.　This isn‘t the first time Obama has declared war on cancer. Nor is Obama the first president to survey this ravaging scourge and rally America’s formidable resources to eradicate it. President Richard Nixon famously launched a similar effort, also invoking t

Jan. 17, 2016

[Francis Barry] Obama asks bipartisanship while sabotaging it

It’s hard to remember a presidential address with more rhetorical dissonance. In his final State of the Union, President Barack Obama offered a hopeful vision of the future while also expressing little interest in achieving it over the next 12 months.　Obama began the speech by paying lip service to bipartisanship and ended it by lamenting the “rancor and suspicion” that dominates Washington, pleading with the country to “fix our politics.” High notes, both.　But in between, he took a dismissive t

Jan. 15, 2016

Value of education cannot be assessed by tests

The recent divisive brouhaha about the need for continuing to run the Territory-wide System Assessment in schools in Hong Kong prompts us to consider more deeply the whole controversial world of educational assessment methods.　It is sometimes said that education is too important a subject to be left only to teachers! Indeed, most teachers spend their entire working lives in schools, with few of them venturing outside to undertake any other types of work. Their only break from the limiting confin

Jan. 14, 2016

U.S.’ awkward alliance with Russia

Russia is emerging as an essential diplomatic and security partner for the U.S. in Syria, despite the Obama administration’s opposition to Moscow’s support for President Bashar al-Assad.  　Russian-American cooperation on Syria now includes regular diplomatic, military and intelligence contacts. Moscow and Washington have evolved a delicate process for “de-confliction” in the tight Syrian airspace, where accidents or miscommunication could be disastrous.  　Administration officials see working wit

Jan. 14, 2016

Venezuela’s opposition faces its biggest test

The newly elected coalition that’s now in charge of Venezuela’s congress represents more than 20 parties, but they share three big goals: freeing political prisoners, healing the country’s wounded economy and ultimately getting rid of President Nicolas Maduro. All three objectives are worthwhile, but if the coalition moves too rashly, it will risk driving Venezuela further into chaos.　Thanks to a late Supreme Court ruling engineered by Maduro, a legal pall has been cast over the two-thirds super

Jan. 13, 2016

Job discrimination in social media era　

In 1874, Father Patrick Francis Healy became the first African-American president of Georgetown University, and thus the first African-American president of a predominantly white college. Racism didn‘t impede his rise for a simple reason: Most people thought he was white. No one -- neither journalists nor the board of trustees, neither Georgetown professors nor students -- had a simple way to discover his true background.Today the Internet makes it impossible to achieve that level of privacy. Ne

Jan. 12, 2016

How Facebook makes us dumber

Why does misinformation spread so quickly on the social media? Why doesn’t it get corrected? When the truth is so easy to find, why do people accept falsehoods?A new study focusing on Facebook users provides strong evidence that the explanation is confirmation bias: people’s tendency to seek out information that confirms their beliefs, and to ignore contrary information.Confirmation bias turns out to play a pivotal role in the creation of online echo chambers. This finding bears on a wide range

Jan. 12, 2016