Share the View: War on Cosmopolitanism

Share The View

THE LATEST OPINIONS FROM BLOOMBERG VIEW

JANUARY 9, 2015 bloombergview.com

PARIS ATTACK Francis Wilkinson: The attack on the offices of magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris "might have been an assault on the idea of the West or on the insolence of juvenile cartoons. But it was also an attack on cosmopolitanism, the righteous incubator of those, and other, irritants."Read more... Stephen L. Carter: "The terrorist isn't irrational. Evil, yes; irrational, no. So although most of the world surely agrees with President Barack Obama's condemnation of the fatal shooting at the offices of Charlie Hebdo as 'senseless attacks against innocent civilians,' it's useful to remember that to the terrorist, the attacks aren't senseless, and the civilians aren't innocent." Read more... TECH Justin Fox: "Samsung had a fun little run as the premium maker of devices in a burgeoning technology ecosystem it doesn't control, and now the inexorable forces of competition, commoditization, modularity and the like have brought it back to earth." Read more... Katie Benner: "Intel's chief executive Brian Krzanich broke up the monotonous gadget and connected-home drone of this year's Consumer Electronics Show with news that the chip maker will spend $300 million over the next five years to become a more diverse company. ... I'm not certain that Intel will succeed in its mission to become a more diverse workplace, but I know that it will be noticeable if it fails." Read more... LAW Noah Feldman: In the jury-selection process in the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, "the prosecution can find out if a juror believes the death penalty is categorically wrong. If she does, she's off the jury. ... A jury should not be chosen by ideological litmus test -- especially not when life is on the line."Read more... WALL STREET Matt Levine: "Here is a story about Bill Gross, whose Janus Global Unconstrained Bond Fund attracted $1.1 billion of investor money in October and November, after he left the once-$293-billion Pimco Total Return Fund to join the then-$13-million Janus fund. The story is that more than $700 million of the Janus money came from a 'Morgan Stanley wealth-management office in La Jolla, Calif.,' which happens to be the 'office where one of Mr. Gross's personal financial advisers works.'" Read more... SPORTS Kavitha Davidson: Chris Christie's allegiance "to America's Team could benefit his push to become America's president." Read more... HEALTH Megan McArdle: "Antibiotic resistance may well be the greatest human crisis we face this century. ... But consider this partial list of things that would be insanely risky, or perhaps impossible, without antibiotics to aid them." Read more... TRANSPORTATION Adam Minter: Thirteen United Airlines flight attendants were fired in October "for refusing to work a San Francisco-to-Hong Kong flight they believed had not been subjected to a proper security screening." Do airlines hold themselves to the same standards that the TSA holds their passengers to? Read more... UKRAINE CRISIS Leonid Bershidsky: "The case President Petro Poroshenko's government has made for international financial support got a boost from the financier and philanthropist George Soros, who urged Europe to put together a $50 billion rescue package for Ukraine. Both Soros's detailed plan and the government's fundraising efforts face an uphill struggle." Read more...