NYT > Opinion

• A Dessert With a Past
  How America narrowly escaped Christmas pudding.
• ‘Ode to Joy,’ Followed by Chaos and Despair
  While Beethoven’s work may seem an innocuous choice for the official anthem of the European Union, it actually tells much more than one would expect about Europe’s predicament today.
• Broken Polls
  Election officials in other states should follow Ohio’s and Colorado’s lead in promoting fair and honest elections.
• Falling Short of Professional Standards
  A new, worrisome survey raises doubts about physicians’ willingness to meet their medical and societal responsibilities.
• Alternative Tax Folly
  A soon-to-become law for the alternative minimum tax simply shifts the burden of lost revenue to a later date and to other taxpayers.
• ’Tis the Season
  If Charles Dickens hadn’t been such a sucker for personal redemption, he might have let us see how perceptive the old Scrooge really was — the one who savors all the ironies of Christmas.
• Italy’s Man From God
  The story of Raffaello Follieri serves as a cautionary tale on what happens when business, charity, fund-raising and politics blur.
• State of the Unions
  Although the movement is a shadow of its former self, unions still matter politically.
• World of Wonders
  Why can’t the charming illogic of air travel include a marketplace for tickets?
• Disparities
  A Chicago schoolteacher questions the gender imbalance that exists in the state selective enrollment schools.
• Huckabee and the Democratic Ideal
  What the Democrats can learn from the Mike Huckabee approach.
• Bound for Academic Glory?
  A new report on higher education raises questions about how public universities can improve.
• Marketing Disorder
  An ad campaign about mental disorders hits a nerve.
• Not Your Mom’s Apple Pie Chart
  How readers fared solving the "Which Came First?" mystery.
• When They Told Me Norman Wrote a BookÂ…
  The author unearths a little-known book by Norman Mailer and finds himself in it.
• Protecting a $155 Billion Pot
  Thomas DiNapoli has moved forward in trying to make the state comptroller’s office more accountable to the public. He should keep aiming in that direction.
• Weakening Pakistan
  Pakistanis need to turn out in force on Election Day to ensure that everybody — not just Pervez Musharraf — can have a say in Pakistan’s future.
• Arrogance and Warming
  President Bush’s decision to deny California permission to regulate global warming emissions from cars can only be explained as the product of ideological blindness.
• Slowing the Rise in Health Costs
  The good news is that many of the reforms analyzed by the Commonwealth Fund might improve the quality of health care delivered to Americans.
• A Crisis Long Foretold
  When all the truth is out about the twin crises of the subprime lending mess, the Federal Reserve will have company in the hall of shame.
• Disappointments on Climate
  A week that could have brought important progress on climate change ended in disappointment.
• A License for Local Reporting
  The outcome of Federal Communications Commission policy that matters most to us is not who owns what, but how much news gathering goes on.
• Gold in the Ivory Tower
  There’s a particularly corrosive shift taking place in higher education: the growing gap between super-wealthy colleges and universities — and the rest of the academic world.
• Hell on Wheels
  Unless you are a deep-sea diver or, maybe, an iron-ore salesman, your luggage really shouldn’t necessitate load-bearing wheels.
• The Vatican’s Relative Truth
  In Pope Benedict XVI’s trip to the U.N. next April, will he be able to find a language to ensure that what he pitches is also what people catch?
• The Mourning After
  Widows and their children in many societies are shunned, abused and exploited.