Chicago Tribune (December 25)
This Christmas is also “Cliffmas, the day none of us wanted to reach with our elected officials in Washington not through heaving lumps of coal at one another. Remember, all of us are a week from a rush of federal tax increases and needlessly abrupt spending cuts because they wrote this showdown into law last year.” One can only hope that in the coming days, the politicians may “decide they’d rather not toss all of us into the chasm.”
Tags: Christmas, Cliffmas, Fiscal cliff, Politicians, Spending cuts, Tax increases, U.S.
Wall Street Journal (December 27)
“China tends to save its most controversial arrests and verdicts for Christmas,” hoping that few people will notice. After Liu Xiaobo, who was sentenced on December 25, 2009, received the Nobel Prize, one might think China would discontinue the practice. This year, however, the tradition continues. “Last Friday, a Sichuan court meted out a nine-year sentence to blogger Chen Wei for inciting subversion—i.e., writing several essays calling for freedom of speech and political reform.”
Tags: China, Christmas, Dissidents, Nobel prize
