Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Not a huge story, but this is my bloody blog and I'll i nclude what catches my fancy. Andrea Mitchell, a giant of US TV journalism, is cutting back on her workload. Friday, Feb. 7 was her last appearance as the host of Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC.  She is not going into retirement, but her appearances on television news and commentary programs hereafter will be occasional, as a guest commentator within the NBC system. Mitchell was born in 1946 -- she'll turn 79 this October. One of the highlights of her career has to be the day in July 2005 when she was forcibly ejected from the room in Khartoum where the President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, was holding a press conference. Al-Bashir only wanted to take questions only from the well-tamed domestic reporters.  Genocide was underway in Sudan's Darfur province, at the hands of a semi-public militia. Mitchell shouted at al-Bashir, Mitchell shouted at him, "Can you tell us why the violence is continuing?" "Can ...

I generally ask myself at this time of year what were the biggest stories of the past twelve months, in business/financial news. Of course, I choose the ones I do largely because they illustrate an important theme, and in the list below I'll spell out and italicize the theme. Yet the theme itself isn't the story. Further, I don't rank them, as in a top ten list. I assign one top story to each of the twelve months. All that said, here is this year's list. January: Continuing Recession.  Iconic chemicals-and-photography company Kodak files for bankruptcy. February:  Eurozone tensions . Europe manages a restructuring of Greek debt -- private bondholders take a deep haircut. [Speaking more broadly, there has been a change in tone over the course of 2012. The year began with a lot of talk about the breakup of the common currency zone. Greece might have withdrawn and started printing drachmas. For better or worse, there is much less of such talk now.] March...