Christina Larson

CHINA’S GAMBLE, OUR FUTURE…. Reporting this spring in China, I became convinced that the western impression of Big Brother Beijing needs serious revision. Yes, China can at times crack down with terrible ferocity. But when it comes to routine maintenance and oversight, the ordinary business of running a government (read: ensuring Beijing’s laws are followed […]

INTERMITTENT IRON FIST….As the New York Times reported today: China executed its former top food and drug regulator today for taking bribes to approve untested medicine as Beijing scrambled to show that it is serious about improving the safety of Chinese products. This might sound like extreme law and order. But severity of punishment should […]

HUNTERS AND WILDERNESS … As the Times reports, a battle is raging in Pennsylvania to keep 44,000 acres of state-protected wilderness from becoming a National Guard target range. The fight for conservation is being spearheaded by a coalition group that includes sportsmen who value the Stony Creek wilderness area as top notch hunting grounds. Unlike […]

BREAKIN’ THE LAW IN CHINA …. Responding to domestic and international panic over food safety in China, regulators in Beijing announced on Tuesday that they had closed 180 food-processing plants in the past six months for breaking food-safety laws. That sounds tough. But it’s a small fraction of the 23,000 total violations the watchdog agency […]

HUNTERS AND GREENS….I spent last weekend in Roanoke, Va., at the annual get-together of the Outdoors Writers of Association of America, the national hook & bullet journos group. This is my second year in attendance. A few things were different this time: The conversation about hunters and greens working together, last year bubbling below the […]

GET WELL SOON … Sen. Tim Johnson, Democrat of South Dakota, age 59, has been hospitalized with an apparent stroke. As Reuters notes: South Dakota’s governor, Michael Rounds, who would appoint any successor if there is a vacancy, is a Republican. UPDATE: The Washington Post has a more detailed account. Johnson first became disoriented during […]

RESTLESS IN SUGAR LAND … Testing F. Scott Fitzgerald’s thesis about second acts in American lives, Tom DeLay has just launched a blog. The bio page is of course well-scrubbed. Silly me to think only Newt Gingrich had a penchant for writing alternative history.

METHOD TO THE MADNESS … Greg Sargent at TPM Cafe calls out George Will for using the delete key in dubious fashion in a column on Jim Webb’s uncomfortable exchange with the president. Webb’s behavior raised eyebrows, but not for the reasons Will depicts. One other point: On the campaign trail, Webb rarely talked about […]

DEFINING THE PROBLEM … The Supreme Court will look at whether the EPA should have the power to regulate carbon emissions from new vehicles today. Recently I had a chance to ask Jim Woolsey, former CIA director, whether he thought global warming should be considered a national security threat (given the possibility of increased natural […]

HERE’S A NUMBER FOR YOU … Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, tells me he’s been trading emails with folks around town — generals, colonels, Pentagon officials — who have been looking carefully and analytically for the last two years at what it will cost to reconstitute the military after Iraq. In […]