For the past few days, I've noticed occasional problems viewing some of the videos on various posts. (Where there should be a video to play, there's a blank square instead.) I've looked into it, and it appears that it is confined to the Firefox browser. If you use Firefox 3.0.1 (as I do) and are having problems viewing videos, you might try IE (Internet Explorer) or, if you're a Mac user, Safari. On my Mac, using Safari solves the problem. But I certainly don't want to have to keep switching back and forth from Firefox to Safari, so I'm looking into a real solution, not just a work-around.
If, like me, you've recently experienced this problem seeing videos from other blogs and sites as well, you might want to do look into whether you're missing a needed plug-in. Here's a helpful piece from Mozilla's Firefox "knowledge base" that may solve the problem for you.
UPDATE: Installing this Firefox Add-on just solved the problem for me: (took 10 seconds)
The Media Wrap extension will allow embedded media to work in Firefox with your installed plugins, on sites that normally require Internet Explorer.
This blog is now about three months old. It's turned out to be a blend of stuff, mostly about American politics and government, but also a mishmash of other kinds of things. "Sense and Nonsense" turns out to have been a pretty good name for it. "Immoderate Opinion and Nonsense" might have been good, too. In any case, I find that I enjoy doing it.
Today I started a different site/blog for the AP American Government & Politics course that I teach. I'll use it as a way of keeping in touch with the Seniors who'll be enrolled in that course next fall. I'll use it over the summer to provide them with links and commentary on important news and unfolding events, and I'll keep it going throughout next year.
The purpose and tone of that site will be different from this one. Whereas this site has turned out to be a venue for the expression of my inner H.L. Mencken, I hope that I can sustain the other site as an educational forum for the exchange of nonpartisan information and ideas about American government and politics.
You're welcome to visit this other site at http://johntierney.typepad.com/ap_american_government. And, by all means, feel free to comment on what you see there. Also, please let me know of articles, videos, graphs, or other items you think might be useful. After all, as our beloved Hillary says, "It takes a village . . . "
You, gentle reader, have been visiting this site for a while now. Here's a question for you: Do you think I should inform my future students of this site's existence? [N.B.: I know that I am not good at keeping my political views hidden in my classes, but I try to be nonpartisan in the way I teach the subject matter of my course.] Should I let my students see this side of my political views? Might it give them yet a different perspective on politics and government? Are they (the poor dears) better off shielded from my personal
opinions and from my thoughts on things other than politics? Whaddaya think? (You recent graduates, please weigh in on this, too.)
-- Jack
Yesterday's posting of the Bush apostate matrix? Old news. 
NOW we've got Vanity Fair's "Blogopticon" matrix of news and opinion blogs. At the site, you can click on the individual icons to go straight to the blog.
In case anyone should notice the name change at the top of this blog, from "John Tierney" to "Jack Tierney," here's the explanation.
As noted in a recent post, there are other John Tierneys in the world whose high name-recognition makes me all-but-invisible on the Internet. I'm all right with that; they deserve their fame. But now that I've started this new blogging avocation, I see the problem I face. It was brought home to me recently when I received an excited email from a journalist whose forthcoming book I mentioned in a recent post. He said he was "thrilled" to see my post. I emailed back to him, saying I was looking forward to reading the book when it comes out next month. I then heard back from him: "I was optimistic until I realized you weren't a New York Times columnist! ;-)"
So, in the time between our email exchanges, his Internet explorations revealed that I am not the John Tierney. He was understandably disappointed and probably felt duped.
I don't want that to happen, and to reduce the likelihood of its occurring in the future, this blog will now bear my nickname "Jack" at the top, and a new URL will link to it: http://jacktierney.com (though it can still be reached through http://johntierney.typepad.com).
Jack? Yes, actually. For over a decade, that's the name by which many of my colleagues in the academic world knew me -- started, I think, by Robert Katzmann, Pietro Nivola, and Barry Rabe. In any case, it seems like a good idea to go back to it.
My paternal grandfather (pictured below) also was John Tierney and was known to his world as Jack. What a pleasure to share his nickname.
