Jayson Blair

I wrote a piece for Newsweek last night and gave a Q&A to Salon on the journalism scandal involving Jonah Lehrer. I have sympathy for him. Another young promising journalist whose self-sabotage is lead to the end of his career (he worked for The New Yorker until yesterday). I vividly remember that feeling of not being able to let go as my career crumbled like the Monte Cassino under weeks of Allied bombing in World War II Italy. Its hard to let go even when the building is crumbling. I know its probably feels like the end of something special, but I hope this bright young man finds redemption waiting for him in the future.

Shalom is a word that has many meanings. It is a Hebrew word that means peace, welfare, completeness, hello and goodbye. In his 1995 eulogy at Yitzak Rabin's funeral, Bill Clinton captured the world when he uttered the simple Hebrew phrase, "Shalom Chaver" -- Farewell, my friend.  This week I had the unfortunate duty of saying goodbye to my friend. In Beth Nielsen Chapman's song "Sand and Water," which is about the premature death of her husband, she sings "All alone, I came into this world. All alone, I will someday die." And so it was with my friend, who died under a bridge, homeless and alone. There is, however, a notion embedded in that song about the impact a person can have in between those two points of being alone -- the impact they can have on our lives. As Nielsen Chapman sings, "I will see you in the light of a thousand suns. I will hear you in the sound of the waves. I will know you when I come, as we all will com...