she didn't see because she was, for no apparent reason, wearing sunglasses indoors.
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29 February 2016
Ms. Ono fell after tripping over a cat
she didn't see because she was, for no apparent reason, wearing sunglasses indoors.
28 February 2016
Aren't We Something Special
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*Her life revolved around research institutes and fellowships.
His moved along the edges of business and government. He traveled a lot. She
moved often. There were planes to catch, seminars, grant proposals, a book to
write, classes to teach, a whirlwind that rarely stopped. Rebecca MacKinnon and
Bennett Freeman had known each other professionally for years, had sat in the
same room for meetings, but cannot recall having a single conversation outside
of work.
Everything changed when their paths crossed one day in
She was starting a fellowship with Open Society Foundations,
a group dedicated to civil rights, democracy and government accountability. He
walked into the group’s office building on his way to a meeting. They spotted
each other, said hello and agreed to have a drink a few days later at Hank’s
Oyster Bar.
It was supposed to be a business drink — short and sweet and
to the point. The Global Network Initiative, a group dedicated to human rights,
freedom of expression and privacy, which they both had a hand in starting, was
up and running, and they wanted to compare notes.
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At the time, his marriage was ending and the divorce
settlement had just been determined. He had not even begun to think about
dating.
“I had no intention of this becoming a date, let alone a
relationship, let alone a marriage,” Mr. Freeman, 58, said. She was only going
to be in town for six weeks. He lived in the capital but was getting ready to
fly to the
“We were enjoying the conversation enough we decided to
continue, order dinner at the bar,” Ms. MacKinnon, 46, said, “and at some point
during the dinner it started to feel a little bit datey, and then as we were
leaving he asked me out.”
The National Symphony Orchestra was playing Bela Bartok’s
Concerto for Orchestra the following weekend, he said to her.
“Without skipping a beat, she began to hum the melody,” said
Mr. Freeman, who was amazed Ms. MacKinnon, who played violin in high school,
was so familiar with one of his favorite classical pieces, especially from a
composer not frequently hummed outside a bar, or anywhere for that matter.
That was early in 2009. They kept in touch as Ms. MacKinnon
traveled for work at a frantic pace. She can tick off the countries, though she
is not sure if they are in the right order.
“After that six weeks in D.C., I went back to
They met in
“I was really kind of circumnavigating the earth a couple of
times,” Ms. MacKinnon said. “He likes to say I was an international bag lady,
you know, kind of living out of suitcases.”
Mr. Freeman’s sister, Rachel Freeman, who was living in
“I said, ‘Where are you?’” she said. “He said, ‘Rebecca,
Rebecca.’ That was the beginning. It was clear, this was important.”
For Ms. MacKinnon, the same feelings were emerging. “He’s
deeply enthusiastic about kind of everything, and just has a love for life and
a love for people,” she said.
Mr. Freeman’s friends say that in high school, when everyone
else talked about sports, he was interested in apartheid in
Larry Baer, a longtime friend of Mr. Freeman’s and now the
president and chief executive of the San Francisco Giants baseball team,
described the couple as “two whirling dervishes.”
“They say that opposites attract,” Mr. Baer said. “But in
that world, whirling dervishes attract.”
Mr. Freeman studied history at the
Ms. MacKinnon grew up in
She left CNN in 2004 and started to research Internet
censorship and surveillance with fellowships at Harvard and
“We’re two people who have struggled our entire adult lives
with being hard driving, ambitious,” Mr. Freeman said. “Working day and night,
nights, weekends. Neither of us has had a healthy balance between our
professional and personal lives.”
They were both “high octane,” he said, together “combustible,”
a perfect match, perhaps, but they lived in different cities.
Ms. MacKinnon kept writing, traveling and looking for grants
and fellowships. She spoke before House and Senate subcommittees on human
rights, and they saw each other while she was in
“What’s sort of amazing is that they were able to stay in
one place long enough to fall in love,” said Ethan Zuckerman, director of the
The couple were ready for a singular cloud-to-ground moment
in their lives.
“Lightning struck, and there we were,” Mr. Freeman said. “And
we’ve been together ever since.”
They took vacations, hiking in places where the pace of life
is slower, the cell service weak and spotty.
The miles stacked up, and when Mr. Freeman became a member
of United Airlines’ MileagePlus Million Miler program in the fall 2014, he
asked her to share his designated Premier status. They were spending some time
on the West Coast when he proposed, outside a Cowgirl Creamery near Point
Reyes,
“He said something like, ‘Well, someday when we get married
we can get a house out here,’” she said. He had made such comments before, but “this
time for whatever reason I said, ‘You know, you never asked me.’”
So he did, and she said yes.
Their wedding celebration spilled across four cities in the
course of a month: a party for 100 in Washington, the ceremony in Phoenix on
Valentine’s Day, a gathering for about 50 in San Francisco the following
weekend and another party for about 65 in London the weekend after that.
As they said their vows, standing before Rabbi Dean Shapiro
and about 50 guests at the
Before their party in
“We’re going to be busier than ever,” Mr. Freeman said, “but
our pledge is to make more time for each other along the way.”
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27 February 2016
26 February 2016
After years of threatening to vote for the worst candidate in order to bring the revolution closer,
this year there is an embarrassment of riches.
25 February 2016
24 February 2016
23 February 2016
22 February 2016
21 February 2016
20 February 2016
19 February 2016
18 February 2016
17 February 2016
16 February 2016
Why all this consternation about the Academy Awards?
It's a moribund, irrelevant, self-congratulatory
circle jerk intended to squeeze more money out of a gullible public in order
to grab even more grotesque profits from grotesquely-expensive 'films'. It
rewards achievement you say: really? Titanic, Gandhi, Roberto Benigni,
Elizabeth Taylor in Butterfield 8.
The whole system is best represented by those jarring out-of-place songs over the final
credits that are completely out of character with the content or mood of the
movie: inserted merely to troll for a nomination in yet another category and thus
the potential for more filthy lucre.
15 February 2016
14 February 2016
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