I left Gorbachev's office thinking that everything about him was outsized: his achievements, his mistakes, and, now, his vanity and bitterness.

There are days when you might enjoy being an editor a little less, due to one crisis or another. It is absolutely vital, to me, in a period of technological evolution and sometimes financial stress that I and my colleagues not only put out a fantastic magazine and Web site and all the rest, but also that we are smart enough about what we are doing.

I left Gorbachev's office thinking that everything about him was outsized: his achievements, his mistakes, and, now, his vanity and bitterness.

If this day means anything, it means that you are now in the contingent of the responsible. You must be kind, yes, but you must also look beyond your own house. We're depending on you for your efforts and your vision. We are depending on your eye and your imagination to identify what wrongs exist and persist, and on your hands, your backs, your efforts, to right them.

We have to do our jobs better, more tirelessly and stop whining about it.

Vladimir Putin wants to become the de facto head of an illiberal, xenophobic, hypernationalist trend in world politics.

I would love to have a stable, productive relationship with Russia.