When I say "our," I mean the collection of Times editorial writers and editors who worked in the same department 20 years ago as I do now (for the record, I was 9 years old when the then-undead German Democratic Republic announced on Nov. 9, 1989, that it  would allow its prisoners -- er, citizens -- to travel freely to capitalist West Berlin and West Germany). Brighter minds than mine have already weighed in on the historical significance of the intervening 20 years between the democratic revolutions in Eastern Europe of 1989 and now (click here for a roundup of today's Berlin Wall punditry). Today on our own Op-Ed page, columnist Gregory Rodriguez waxes historical about the Cold War nostalgia for the moral clarity provided by the Berlin Wall, and Mitchell Koss reminds us of the revolutionary actions of Hungarians several months prior to the events in East Germany. On Sunday we published the accounts of six former East Germans on their experiences as citizens of a reunited Germany.

Below is a Times editorial published on Nov. 10, 1989, the day after the East German politburo lifted emigration restrictions on its own citizens and precipitated the demolition of the Berlin Wall. Though The Times relishes the excitement of the moment, the editorial steers clear of any prognostication about the future of communism in Eastern Europe (much less the Soviet Union, which would cease to exist two years later) and devotes much of its ink to analyzing the realpolitik behind East Germany's actions.

-- Paul Thornton

The full editorial:

The "Illegal Alien Mask with Hat" costume, which includes an actual racial element in the handlebar mustache, seems beyond on the pale; I can't say the same for the other outfit. If anything, the orange-jumpsuit costume, pictured above, comes across more as a riff on anti-immigrant hysterics -- whose use of the nakedly scaremongering term "illegal alien" betrays a kind of mindless, childlike, sci-fi fear of invaders from outer space -- than actual border-crossing undocumented immigrants. Think of the 2004 comedy flick Team America's portrayal of Arab Muslims, who say little more than, "Derka derka, Muhammed jihad," with an occasional "Allah" thrown in. The targets weren't Arabs, but the hawkish view that Muslims as a whole were little more than jihad-obsessed radicals. I can't speak to the costume-makers' intent, but the activists calling for retailers to stop selling the outfits argue based on their perception; likewise, I'm offering mine. (For the record, I fall on the "path to citizenship" side of the immigration reform debate.)

Is this costume offensive to you? Am I totally wrong here? Feel free to post your comments below.

-- Paul Thornton

Ralph Lauren has apologized, but that doesn't mean blogs or feminist groups are about to let go of the  grotesque retouch job on a fashion shot that makes the model's waist look like it was squeezed into an illegal torture device. Her hips appear narrower than her head, as blog Boing Boing pointed out, and her thighs look like they came straight from a classroom skeleton. The clothing company eventually confessed to the mistake, saying it was having a bad Photoshop day.

But now the National Organization for Women is demanding a further apology, to women everywhere for the company's alleged obsession with portraying extreme thinness, and preferably also to Filippa Hamilton, the model in the ad who was fired by Ralph Lauren after years of being one of its top models. Hamilton said the clothier found her 120-pound girth on a 5-foot-10 body -- translating to a size 4 -- too  bulky to fit into its sample sizes. The company denies that's why she was fired.

Meanwhile, the blogs are gleefully showing off another photo, reportedly also Ralph Lauren, showing a pretty model with a bizarrely thin, elongated, hipless body, like the aliens in "Cocoon." Never fear, E.T. Your short legs and dumpy midsection will never qualify you as a Ralph Lauren model -- that is, not without emergency Photoshopping -- but NOW is holding its fourth annual "Love Your Body" celebration next Wednesday.

Photo: On the left, Filippa Hamilton with digital liposuction; on the right, as she is. Credit: AP

-- Karin Klein 

It's not clear what precipitated this convergence, but the opinion pages of the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times and the Washington Post all devoted space last weekend to op-eds ruminating on contemporary conservatism. For those who missed this odd confluence of punditry, here's a quick wrap-up.

In the LA Times last Friday, Ted Kennedy biographer Neal Gabler wrote that the conservative movement's ideological rigidity of late bears all the trappings of religion. An excerpt:

Read responses to Gabler's piece here and here.

Also on Friday, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote that voters don't share with media and GOP elites the obsession over fringe-radio archetypes such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Although Brooks' piece explicitly targets GOP brass for giving too much weight to shock-jocks, I read his piece as a veiled defense of the common conservative voter. An excerpt:

Last up is conservative scholar Stephen F. Hayward, whose Op-Ed article in the Washington Post on Sunday seems to be an amalgam of the ideas expressed by Gabler and Brooks. Hayward writes that the conservative movement benefits from the provocative populists in its ranks, but in the past the Hannity- and Limbaugh-types were counterbalanced by such serious conservative intellectuals as Milton Friedman and William F. Buckley Jr. Today, that balance tilts decisively toward the populists and needs an intellectual counterweight. He finds hope in (wait for it) Glenn Beck. An excerpt from Hayward:

Which view comes closest to yours: The politics-as-religion analysis offered by Gabler, or Brooks' claim that Republican shock-jocks receive too much attention from GOP and media brass? Can Glenn Beck save the Republican Party? Or is the conservative movement on the right track? Post your comments below.

It has come to this: President Obama may not, in fact, support the troops.

First up, an excerpt from ex-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's Facebook post in response to Obama's address to Congress Wednesday on healthcare reform:

Second up is Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, who I believe is only half-joking when he says Palin comes from "the University of Real America":

Two of my favorite bloggers -- Jim Ceaser of the University of Virginia, and Sarah Palin of the University of Real America -- were particuarly [sic] struck by one line in President Obama’s speech last night. As was I.

This is it: "Now, add it all up and the plan I'm proposing will cost around $900 billion over 10 years, less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars....”

What’s the implication? Apparently, that we shouldn’t have spent so much on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Fair enough, perhaps, with respect to the war in Iraq, which Obama opposed. On the other hand, Obama has supported the war in Afghanistan. Indeed, he’s criticized the Bush administration for under-resourcing that effort. ...

For the president, in a formal address to Congress, to suggest even in passing that these struggles are merely distasteful burdens rather than worthwhile missions, is appalling. Sarah Palin is right: Obama’s “offhand applause line” was an insult to those who have fought and sacrificed, and to those who are now fighting and sacrificing, on our behalf.

The Plum Line's Greg Sargent has already discussed the tackiness of Palin using 9/11 to launch a political attack on Obama (much of her post, by the way, pushed her renewed death-panel argument, which Times editorial writer Jon Healey neatly debunked). Also note that Palin offers her interpretation of what Obama meant without bothering to quote him. By that same token, Kristol all but brands our president unpatriotic using a conveniently truncated Obama's remark as evidence. If editorializing were only so simple.

Here's what Obama said, complete sentence and all:

Here's my reading, and it doesn't involve a troop-hating president who has not "internalized the fact that he is now commander-in-chief," as Kristol says: The president was calling out as hypocrites Republicans who voted for President Bush's expensive tax cuts and supported two expensive (and off-budget) wars, but who now use deficits and excessive government spending to argue against healthcare reform.

Obama could have further argued that extending healthcare coverage to all Americans is a more worthwhile endeavor than dispatching hundreds of thousands of American troops to another hemisphere to fight two wars. But Obama didn't say that, and he certainly didn't go far enough for Kristol and Palin to accuse a sitting American president of disrespecting the memory of those who died fighting wars on our behalf. 

A disclaimer: I haven't made up my mind on Obama's proposed healthcare reform plan, especially in light of Medicare's impending insolvency and Washington's overall crushing debt burden. Infusing the debate with mindless death-panel claims and accusations that the president has a hard time supporting our troops only pushes me (and, I suppose, other fence-sitters) to the pro-reform camp, if only to see the likes of Kristol and Palin saunter home in defeat.

-- Paul Thornton

Top photo: AP Photo / Al Grillo; bottom photo: Alicia Wagner / Los Angeles Times

The Southeastern Conference (you know, the home of those really good teams that win all the national championships?) has decided to ban social media from college stadiums. No iPhone photos, no cell phone videos, no Twitter, Facebook or YouTube.

According to the revised policy on new media released Monday, ticketed fans are not allowed to "produce or disseminate (or aid in producing or disseminating) any material or information about the Event, including, but not limited to, any account, description, picture, video, audio, reproduction or other information concerning the Event."

The SEC believes that the dissemination of videos, pictures, tweets and other newfangled technologies will reduce the number of viewers who watch live broadcasts of the game on TV -- and they want to protect their contract with CBS and other television networks.

Meanwhile, the Big Ten Conference has taken the opposite approach, encouraging the use of social media sites and the proliferation of status updates and tweets. Coaches like Northwestern's Pat Fitzgerald see Facebook as a way to communicate with fans, not a tool that could jeopardize mainstream media. 

So which approach do you think is best? Is there some merit in the SEC's approach to let broadcast handle the viewers' demands? Or is the Big Ten right to embrace new technology?

Updated August 20 4:15 p.m.: The SEC reversed its policy after this blog post was written. The SEC's revised policy now reads:

-- Catherine Lyons

Credit: Sun Sentinel Staff Photo / Robert Duyos

I was a reluctant convert to Facebook, and even apostatized for a while after being overwhelmed with bulletins about the quotidian doings of some of my FB friends. But I'm back. Partly it's because FB is a way to reconnect with friends and relatives (I sniffed out three cousins), but my not-so-ulterior motive is professional.

Having initially been appalled by the use of FB by journalists as a self-promotion device, I'm doing it myself now. The second job-related advantage of FB is as a research resource. I have joined or become a fan of a mind-numbing number of organizations in which I take a journalistic interest. This gives me access to a bevy of bulletin boards about what's happening at, say, the Heritage Foundation or the liberal American Constitution -- chewy grist for my editorial-writing mill.

On some subjects FB is a more efficient search engine than Google or Bing. Still, the popular presumption that FB is a networking site for the like-minded could induce a casual browser to think that I suffer from MPPD (Multiple Political Personality Disorder).

I belong to both the Darwin-doubting Discovery Institute and the evolutionarily orthodox American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Rifle Association and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. If I'm ever nominated for a Cabinet position, I'll have a lot of 'splainin' to do (as Judge Sonia Sotomayor did, according to Sen. Tom Coburn channeling Ricky Ricardo).

Adding to the confusion would be the fact that some of my memberships are sincere, even if they also serve a professional purpose. I'm working on an article (you heard it here first) about the new trend of high school and college debates conducted on the Internet. But as a former debater myself and sometime debate judge, I still might  have joined Toastmasters and the Harvard Parliamentary Debate Class of 2013.

I have yet to discover a dual purpose in some of the other groups I joined, such as  "Fans of Michael Franks," "The British Detective Fiction Book Club," and "Firstborn Kids = Overachievers!" Hmm, maybe a mystery novel set in Oxford about the murder of every first-born child by a killer obsessed with the song "Popsicle Toes."

Much ado over the last few days in newspapers and the blogosphere about healthcare reform. Here's a partial round-up, starting with the left.

The Washington Post's Harold Meyerson writes that forcing bipartisanship on reform could result in a modern-day “Missouri Compromise that reconciles opposites at the cost of good policy.” Meyerson says giving in to what he says are extreme right-wing demands won’t fix healthcare:

Charleston Gazette columnist Joseph Wyatt compares Congress’ blocking of healthcare reform to Alabama Gov. George Wallace's symbolic attempt to prevent black students from enrolling at the University of Alabama by blocking a campus doorway. Wyatt also looks for the flaws in the Canadian healthcare system that conservatives often cite as their reasons to oppose healthcare reform:

At the Weekly Standard's blog, Jeffrey H. Anderson rails against the increasing costs of the healthcare programs that the government already runs. He argues against the idea that military healthcare is the best, calling it "first-class-meets-DMV-style medicine." He provides some entertaining anecdotes about his wife’s experience with military healthcare: 

Theodore Dalrymple -- nom de plum of Anthony Daniels, a British physician -- writes in the Wall Street Journal that no one has a right to healthcare. He says that equal healthcare isn’t desirable because “to provide everyone with the same bad quality of care would satisfy the demand for equality.” He says there are more important necessities in life than medical care:

Finally, in the New York Times, former chairman of National Transportation Safety Board Jim Hall says those working for healthcare reform should take a lesson from his agency and have an investigative body be in charge of uprooting the causes of medical error:

The pseudonymous Los Angeles police officer apparently thinks very little of the Angelenos he's paid to "protect and serve." I say this having read Dunphy's dig at The National Review on the Obama administration's flubbed response to the Henry Louis Gates affair. An excerpt (emphasis mine):

Note the italics -- and consider that an armed officer of the law grotesquely warns any innocent civilian who cites his Constitutional protection against unreasonable searches that he runs the risk of being killed. I hope that a cop who pulls me over simply because another guy driving a blue VW Jetta committed a crime would exercise more restraint should I point out that the law is on my side.

In all seriousness, Dunphy is completely out of line here; any officer who considers citizens belligerent for asserting their Constitutional rights is a danger to the public and his department. Chief Bratton take note.

Hat tip to Brian Doherty at Reason magazine's Hit & Run.

A warning is bouncing through cyberspace today, landing on the Facebook statuses of many of the social networking site's users. The message: "Facebook has agreed to let third party advertisers use your posted pictures without your permission." It continues with a prescription of how you can protect your photos.

On its face, Facebook's actions seem like a classic case of misappropriation, or the intentional, illegal use of the property of someone else for one's own use or some other unauthorized purpose. Facebook admits in its terms of service that all Intellectual Property content, like photos and videos, belong to you, the user. But the fine print essentially allows Facebook to do what its pleases with such content, with some limitations.

Elsewhere in those terms of service that no one ever reads before hastily clicking "I agree," Facebook says, "You can use your privacy settings to limit how your name and profile picture may be associated with commercial or sponsored content. You give us permission to use your name and profile picture in connection with that content, subject to the limits you place." (emphasis added).

Well, that's not vague or anything. What does "in connection with" these third-party ads (i.e. ads on Facebook but not for Facebook) mean? According to the Facebook-wide status panic about this, apparently it means that your married face could end up on a sexy singles ad.

But Facebook administrators say that's simply not true, and their policy has not changed regarding photos being used in third-party advertisements. Still, the Facebook blog says the site can use your photo for something that you have expressed interest in (say, by becoming a "fan") -- without your permission. Don't worry though, your data won't be shared.

According to All Facebook, the social networking site only allows its users' content to show up on third-party ads if the content is not being cached. But some ad networks do cache data. While many of those networks have been shut down and the site is doing its best to regulate, this is where the major problem lies. In some cases, pictures are appearing even outside the Facebook site.

As underhanded as this may seem, this should be a lesson to actually read the terms of service, vague as they may be, before signing up for a social networking service that wants to use your pictures in ads. That, or don't put up pictures you're not comfortable sharing with people outside your network of friends. In the meantime, you can change your privacy settings. The Facebook ads privacy settings are under "Newsfeeds and Wall."   

--Catherine Lyons

Credit: AP Photo / The Canadian Press, Sean Kilpatrick