I’m always talking about how smart people on the internet are, what about how stupid they are? A commenter called Ludwig Von Schaffner uses my latest take on my Jewish problem to say that Jews are responsible for gas chambers….
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Monthly Archives: May 2006
More on the Basketball Problem
The editor of the online Observer, Jake Brooks, a Miami Heat fan, doesn’t agree with me about the meaninglessness of basketball’s first three quarters: I’ve heard this complaint voiced many times. I have even complained myself about the same thing….
Cheney on Bernard Lewis
A month after he did so, I learn that Vice President Cheney gave a long toast to the neoconservative scholar Bernard Lewis at a lunch in Philadelphia. As usual, Cheney’s speech is significant for what it doesn’t tell us: anything…
Kama Sutra Position 33: I Do Better at a Dinner Party
Having vowed not to f— up another dinner party, I said I’d report on a party last weekend, and my continuing effort to socialize myself. Herewith: I thought I did fine. I didn’t seem to make anyone uncomfortable. I probably…
My Jewish Problem C’ted: My Tribe Is No Longer a Progressive Political Force
The two items below that attack neocons are really the reason I’m blogging. I have tried for years to write about these issues in the mainstream media. They’re not interested, though I think these issues are central to the disaster…
New York Harbor’s Beaches. Yes, You Heard That Right
Yahoo/AP has a good story this morning on plans to create a beach on the Hudson, at Piers 52/53. The story misses a growing movement led by boaters to revive the city’s beaches. For instance, the argument is raging now…
The Smoking Transcript
The historic piece on the Israel lobby in the London Review of Books in March continues to reverberate. The latest LRB contains a dispute between the paper’s authors, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, and the former executive director of the…
Democratic Neocons
Today’s LA Times has a good piece by Jacob Heilbrunn about Democratic neocons. They want, in essence, to return to the beliefs that originally brought the neocons to prominence, the beliefs that motivated old-fashioned Cold War liberals such as Democratic…
War and Non-Sacrifice
The hero of this site is Roscoe Bartlett, the 80-year-old Maryland congressman/seer who is trying to bring our attention to the coming crisis in oil supplies, a crisis of which the recent gas-price increases (which demagogues like Barbara Boxer would…
I F— Up Another Dinner Party
I don’t fully understand why I reached for a 3-by-5 card from a nearby drawer, during a dinner my wife and I had for an old friend, Friday night, and scratched down a few notes at the table about the…
Another Day, Another Picture of a Dog in a Sink
Another Problem With Basketball, a Big One
Is that the first three quarters of a good game are meaningless. The teams spend three quarters feeling one another out, then in the fourth quarter everything happens. Sometimes, admittedly, a game is decided in the third quarter. But that’s…
Barbaro, Continued
The Times’ William Rhoden has done a fine column on the dark side of the thoroughbred industry, (as called for here some days ago) including massive slaughter. Kudos to Rhoden and the Times. Will the networks follow? Or does Barbaro’s…
Memo to Sports Editors
On C-Span today, an executive for Amnesty International warns that 1 million men will enter Germany next month for the World Cup, likely resulting in an increase in trafficking of women. The Amnesty International web site speaks of the likelihood…
Excellence in Journalism
Richard Engel’s report last night on the NBC Nightly News from an orphanage in Iraq. A beautiful story, without attitudinizing or agenda, just a big open heart. Want to understand the suffering we have precipitated—check it out.
Dog Out of Focus and In Sink
Tim Russert Meows at the Times
The shoe being on the other foot, Tim Russert of NBC took the opportunity of being interviewed by Brian Lamb on Washington Journal this morning to complain about an interview of him that the Times Magazine ran on Mother’s Day….
Hillary’s Baggage: A Story From My Former Life as a Clinton-Hater
Right now we’re in a Hillary moment, already discussing whether she will be the nominee, and I hear Democratic friends say, “Hillary’s baggage,” and worrying about the distraction it could cause. Yesterday a friend said to me, “Those Clinton haters…
10,000 Letters From Harvard
caption The keen reader will note that I complain about having gone to Harvard, all the way to the bank. O.K. But I was a University of Michigan student trapped in a Harvard student’s body. Here’s my latest complaint. According…
More Crocodile Tears for Dixie Chicks
I see now that the Dixie Chicks are on this week’s cover of Time. (Sorry, I’m always the last to know). Now they’re “Radical.” Please. I tried to get at the bogusness of their political positioning earlier this week. But…
Al Gore Is a Serious Person. Is Bill Clinton?
I like this Al Gore moment, I hope it lasts a long time. (Heck, I was for him becoming President back in ’99, but my former party failed me on that). Al Gore is doing a truly great thing. Wired…
I Should Be Boiled In Oil
Maurice Sendak once said that to me. He was pissed. Duh. It’s a long story. I mention it because of my Clinton item yesterday, when I wrote something like—I don’t want to even look at it—”I genuinely wish the Clintons…
Will the Real Joseph C. Wilson IV Stand Up?
Something popped out of yesterday’s Times report on the Libby-Cheney leak investigation: the name Joseph C. Wilson IV. I thought the ambassador’s name was Joe Wilson, or as his book, The Politics of Truth, is bylined, Joseph Wilson. I was…
I Was Disingenuous
A reader has already nailed me, below, for the Clinton girlfriend item, saying Where are you going with this? You know, they’re right; I like gossip. I just do. It’s bad, I can rationalize it a zillion ways and quote…
My Travels In Evil Syria: An Expert’s Response
One of the things I love about blogging is you can’t talk down to your readers, they’re as smart as you are (smarter!). I’ve gotten more comment about a post I did a few days ago on my impressions from…