A famous 1973 cover of National Lampoon showed a dog with a revolver held to its head, with the caption, “If you don’t buy this magazine, we’ll kill this dog.” To hear defenders of publicly subsidized media, Republican efforts to cut funding to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System puts a gun to the head of Big Bird. That doesn’t have to be the case. The Corporation for Public B

Viewpoints March 16, 2011

The 9.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Japan’s northeastern coast on Friday (March 11) ― the fourth largest in the world since 1900 ― has dwarfed all other headlines. The ensuing 23-foot tsunami traveled miles inland before receding and leaving in its wake a swampy wasteland of debris, buildings set ablaze and over 120 aftershocks.The disaster was brought to the global consciousness through bird

Viewpoints March 16, 2011

The crisis in Japan stemming from a triple disaster ― a 9.0-magnitude earthquake, a subsequent giant tsunami and blasts at a nuclear power plant ― is deepening, causing concern that it could take a toll on the Korean as well as the global economy. Korean policymakers initially said the impact of the Japanese disaster on the national economy would be temporary and limited. They need to change their

Editorial March 16, 2011

The nuclear crisis in Japan shows no signs of abating. Fears of a major radiation leak heightened on Tuesday following two separate explosions at the earthquake-hit nuclear power plant in Fukushima. The blasts, which occurred at the No. 2 and No. 4 reactors, raised radioactive levels in the surrounding areas, leading Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan to urge people within 30 km of the facility to

Editorial March 16, 2011

The American comic strip Pogo once famously noted, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” This may be the best way to describe the current fracas in Washington over the deficit.Politicians of both parties have done a poor job of educating the public, and voters are sending conflicting, and in some cases, misguided, messages.A Bloomberg National Poll published last week, in line with other surveys,

Viewpoints March 16, 2011

It takes a crisis, such as the financial meltdown in 2008, to rally support for a Keynesian style fiscal stimulus.It takes another kind of crisis, specifically the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the northeastern coast of Japan last week, to expose the Keynesian fallacy that the government can spend its way to prosperity.For that reason, Acts of God provide a teaching moment. They make the

Viewpoints March 16, 2011

The devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan last Friday (March 11) have highlighted many important issues for every country.In 2010, there was the disastrous earthquake in Haiti which killed an estimated 223,000 people and made two million homeless.Earthquakes also occurred in Chile and China (April), Sumatra (April and October, accompanied by a tsunami that killed hundreds) and Iran (December

Viewpoints March 15, 2011

How can we help?That’s the first question that comes to American minds as the size and scope of Japan’s disaster unfolds. Click on PayPal to send money for emergency shelters. Sponsor a child from Sendai. Encourage General Electric Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt to send nuclear engineers.This week of horror has generated record good will in the U.S. toward Japan.There is a way the U.S. can help. O

Viewpoints March 15, 2011

It always struck me as odd that Japanese bookstores have not just earthquake sections, but entire aisles of titles devoted to tectonic upheavals. After Friday’s big one, I’m now a believer in quake-olgy. Temblors have a complicated place in the Japanese psyche. There’s a widely held belief, a local mythology, that tectonic-plate shifts can coincide with big ones above the ground, too. An 1855 eart

Viewpoints March 15, 2011

The horrible damage caused by the massive earthquake that struck a wide area of eastern Japan on Friday has gradually become clear.Coastal cities and towns in three prefectures in the Tohoku region ― Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima ― have been devastated. Large tsunamis struck only minutes to several dozen minutes after the Tohoku Pacific Offshore Earthquake occurred, washing away houses and automobil

Viewpoints March 14, 2011

Tens of thousands of Gmail users had a rude shock recently when they logged in only to find all their messages had vanished. Google has restored their e-mail from tape backup by this week, but the inadvertent deletion (during a software upgrade) must raise concerns over security and trust in applications that share remote databases beyond the control of individual users. There were no reports that

Viewpoints March 13, 2011

The assemblies of Okinawa Prefecture and two cities in the prefecture ― Naha and Urasoe ― on Tuesday unanimously adopted resolutions protesting comments by a U.S. official that allegedly disparaged the Okinawans. Other Okinawan assemblies will follow suit. In an off-the-record lecture in Washington in December before 14 students who were about to visit Tokyo and Okinawa, Kevin Maher, head of the o

Viewpoints March 13, 2011

In the annals of fashionable timing, Prada SpA’s trip to Asia deserves a mention. It’s blowing off Milan and taking the largest initial public offering of a family-owned Italian company since 2006 to Hong Kong. The reason investors in Prada’s hometown must reach 5,800 miles away to buy the stock: Asia’s hot, Europe’s not. It gets even better for Prada. The $2 billion IPO will hit the investment ca

Viewpoints March 13, 2011