Sunday morning roundup

Frank Rich takes the media to task.

Nicholas Kristof continues to report the profoundly f*ed up.

Maureen Dowd's intelligent analysis of Gatesgate. From yesterday's paper, this is also a good piece, and valuable in the debate because it takes the race-neutral perspective, i.e. looks at police dealing with difficult people. I agree with one guy's point: you're not dealing with people at their best; no one is happy in a situation where police has become involved. You don't have to take slights personally, and you can choose to de-escalate. By the way--am I the only one to gird for accusations of elitism to point out that "stupidly" is an adverb, rather than an adjective? And while I agree that we have a ways to go in terms of open, honest discussion on issues of race, I think it's interesting that the side-taking in this debate hasn't fallen strictly or even mostly, as far as I can tell, along racial lines. And we can all benefit from challenging our assumptions.

Metro still doesn't get it, and "it" isn't limited to the crash.

What happened to not rewarding terrorists?

Should we be afraid of, or at least more careful, with robots?