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

Everyone moans about the collapsing U.S. infrastructure.

I seem to be one of the few people in journalism who never worked or wrote for the 'Boston Phoenix.' I certainly read and admired it, and feel the same general malaise at news that it is gone.

I am explicitly not opening the giant can of worms that is the ongoing current discussion of patent, copyright, and trademark reform.

It seems to be the case that for the people who actually are all in with Donald Trump - which is who knows: 35, 38, 40 per cent of the electorate - apparently nothing can dissuade them.

The air that people breathe in many Chinese cities has become dangerously polluted. Their food supply is subject to constant contamination scandals. Now it appears that not merely stagnant ponds but the water people draw from deep underground is already tainted.

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.