The hoary joke in the literary world, based on 'Dreams From My Father,' was that if things had worked out differently for Barack Obama, he could have made it as a writer.

The amazing thing about Trump is that he is so completely predictable. Hillary Clinton knows that if she teases him about either his wealth, his taxes, the women who are coming after him or his preposterous claims of being against the Iraq war, he cannot resist.

Environmental disaster is the gravest threat to China's continued development. That's according to me, but it is not some wacko view.

The President? Hmmm, I wonder who that might be? Could it be, perhaps, the sitting two-term incumbent of the same party holding its convention? The person whose economic and military policies shape the environment the next president will deal with? As best I can tell, in the tens of thousands of words making up the combined remarks of John McCain, Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, and Lindsay Graham, the Name That Must Not Be Uttered appeared exactly once.

For the record, I am sticking with my claim that the simultaneous degradation of air quality, water quality, water supply, food safety, soil quality, and other environment-related variables is the main challenge to China's continued development.

Contrary to what you might think, China's economy is relatively less efficient, and more polluting, than those of rich countries.

In a time of transition for journalism all around the world, it's reassuring to know that some of the old ways endure.