In the Apple case, a federal judge has conceived a nifty new function for Big Brother: Instead of preventing citizens from doing bad things or encouraging them to do good things, why not force them to do good things?

Economist Robert Gordon argues that computers and the Internet have barely affected people’s lives. My own experiences suggest that the professor should get out of his ivory tower more often.

Stock markets are tumbling, with no apparent end in sight. But investors haven’t panicked, thanks to the reassuring messages they’ve received from their money managers. For example. . . .

Presidential debates make great theater, but great performers don’t necessarily make great administrators. Consider a recent exchange between the glib Donald Trump and the earnest John Kasich.

The civic savior Gerry Lenfest has implemented an ingenious plan to preserve Philadelphia’s leading news organization. What could possibly go wrong? Just one or two little things. . . .

BSR's writers are up in arms over our arbitrary payment policies. But things were even worse when I was editor, as a glimpse at my private emails will attest.

Just in time for Christmas: A libretto for Handel’s Messiah that self-deprecating Philadelphians can sing without embarrassment.

The two most abrasive Republican presidential candidates now rank first and second in the polls. The only two grown-ups in the group are struggling in the rear. Welcome to the age of the antihero.

Do you remember the Golden Age of Arts Journalism? Neither do I. As H.L. Mencken’s memoir reminds us, back in the supposed good old days, most newspaper arts critics were drunk most of the time, and with good reason.

Princeton University’s current Woodrow Wilson controversy provides a convenient distraction from the larger issue, which is not Wilson’s racial bigotry but the exclusionary culture that until recently characterized Princeton University itself.