A couple of years back, when, it seems, I was feeling particularly down in the mouth, I wrote an extended piece bearing the title The Republicans: WTF Happened to this Party?. Recently, a couple of actual Republicans have written books asking themselves the same question, viz. Matthew Continetti (The Right The Hundred Year War for…
Author: Alan Vanneman
So, the Nobel wasn’t for stand-up, am I correct, Dr. Krugman?
“I sometimes joke that there are only around 15 true libertarians in America, and they all wear bow ties”—Nobel Prize dude Paul Krugman, holding forth in today’s NYT. Assuming that that’s true, one can only pity Paul’s friends, if he has any. I know a number of “true libertarians”, though probably not 15, and none…
Paul Jones—“I Mean You”
Paul Jones on tenor saxophone, Colin Stranahan on drums, Leon Boykins on bass, and Perry Smith on guitar. Posted by Paul Jones
California’s high-speed rail project not so hot, the New York Times discovers
This just in! How California’s Bullet Train Went Off the Rails! Yeah, the NYT’s Ralph Vartabedian has the story on California’s long-struggling mega-mega project, a 200 mph bullet train running between San Francisco and LA, aka “the train to nowhere”: America’s first experiment with high-speed rail has become a multi-billion-dollar nightmare. Political compromises created a…
Barack Obama, wise before the fact, but not, alas, during
Timothy Shenk, a professor of history at the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, which is “within” (somehow) George Washington University, has a nice article up at the New York Times, A Lost Manuscript Reveals the Fire Barack Obama Couldn’t Reveal on the Campaign Trail. What the good professor is talking about is a 250-page…
Central Michigan University—“I Mean You”
Robbie Smith, trumpet, John Nichol, saxophone, Bob Lindahl, trombone, Ed Fedewa, bass, Andrew Spencer, drums, and special guest Lisa Sung from Hope College of Music. Posted by Central Michigan University School of Music
Vladimir Putin is our creation
Vladimir Putin, it seems, hath no bottom. Like a man sinking in quicksand, the more frenzied his efforts to escape, the more deeply he sinks. The great problem is, of course, that he’s threatening to take us along with him. Putin’s moral culpability is so great, and both his complaints and actions so vicious and…
Okay, I guess that 1996 Clinton-Gingrich welfare reform bill wasn’t perfect after all
In the unlikely event that you are an assiduous reader of this blog, you know that I’m a big fan of the 1996 welfare reform legislation that drastically reduced welfare dependency in the U.S.—and welfare dependency really is a thing—or it really was—regardless of what “passionate” liberals want you to think.1 But, as it turns…
Steven Feifke—“I Mean You”
Steve with Dan Chmielinski, bass, and Bryan Carter, drums. Posted by Steven Feifke
Ḥasidic schools: The Story Behind the Story Behind the Story
A week or so back the New York Times busted a big one, In Hasidic Enclaves, Failing Private Schools Flush With Public Money. “New York’s Hasidic Jewish religious schools have benefited from $1 billion in government funding in the last four years but are unaccountable to outside oversight” ran the subhead. Well, over at Mosaic,…