IT'S good for our political discourse when politicians break with the party line.
We don't think that political parties debase public discourse when they are given free airtime for political broadcasts.
Often heard is the chorus of, "One cannot criticize Israel without being called anti-Semitic," yet how are we supposed to improve discourse when the media fails to distinguish between Judaism and Israel?
Television was black and white, and so was the discourse, when the show went on in 1956, weeknights at 11, on the New York affiliate of the short-lived DuMont television network.
If Iraq dominates today's American political discourse — "When will our boys and girls come home?" an Iowa caucus voter asked Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton this month — the war seems to loom just as large across Scotland.
The dog whistle was the preferred mode of right-wing discourse: When the segregationist George Wallace ran for president, he scaled back his racial rhetoric and instead spoke of infringements of "states' rights".
Through Live Aid, the Mandela concert and the Amnesty tours, these people - among them Bob Geldof, Sting, Youssou N'Dour, Bruce Springsteen - espoused the return of morality to public discourse when everything seemed to be subordinated to the pursuit of private affluence.
Francis violated a set code of Catholic ethical and philosophical discourse when, in an open letter to the prominent Italian journalist and atheist Eugenio Scalfari, in September, he wrote, "I would not speak about 'absolute' truths, even for believers.... Truth is a relationship.
Well regarded in the industry as an engineer, she is capable of the highest level of gearhead discourse ("When the SSL J9000 came out, I couldn't wait to learn it," she gushed — about a 1990s-vintage console — while describing her studio education).
