Did someone put LSD in Mike Pence’s milkshake? Did he have a drink with a woman who was not his wife without the presence of the woman who is his wife? I doubt if we’ll ever know, but, whatever the cause, I’ll be eternally grateful, because Big Mike, speaking to a friendly (I hope) crowd…
Author: Alan Vanneman
A Cold Snap in Hell: The New York Times Wonders if Government “National Security Experts” Always Tell the Truth!
Satan’s earmuffs, it’s cold! The headline says it all: Why ‘Trust Us’ Is Often Reason Enough Not to Trust the Government. In a stunningly trenchant “news analysis”, Charlie Savage notes that the frenzied resentment that Biden administration spokesfolk like Jen Psaki express towards anyone who doubts their sainted word only makes us doubt them all…
Thanks, Jen Psaki, for making me embarrassed to be a Democrat
I recently recommended that Ilya Shapiro, scheduled to become executive director of the Georgetown University Center for Constitutional Studies, be given a week or two, probably sans pay, to think over the advisability of the executive director of the Georgetown University Center for Constitutional Studies talkin’ smack every time a Democratic president makes a Supreme…
Jeff Bezos wins “World’s Biggest *sshole” Contest Without Even Trying!
Suck on this, Elon Musk! Shiver with rage, Mark Zuckerberg! Pretend you don’t care, Bill Gates! And Richard Branson, go fly a kite! Yeah, losers, Cap’n Jeff Bezos has just beaten you all, without even trying, because his brand new, motherfucking high tech sail-powered yacht is so motherfucking big they’ll have to dismantle the motherfucking…
Renee Rosnes—“Bright Mississippi”
Renee on the piano, from her album, With a Little Help From My Friends, who are many, but I couldn’t track down which ones were on this cut. Sorry! Also, obviously, no video. Posted by Renee
Political Notes from All Over
Turnout, Turnout, Turnout! Why Democrats love it and Republicans hate it. Ruy Teixeira, a Democratic political centrist after my own heart, has a post up at his Substack blog, The Liberal Patriot, How Not to Build a Coalition, arguing, correctly, in my opinion, “High turnout is just not the magic key to Democratic victories the…
Shorter Paul Krugman: Yes, I am an airhead. Why do you ask?
Okay, a couple of weeks ago I made a pretty cheap joke at the expense of WashPost film critic Ann Hornaday for writing a column I didn’t like—to wit, Shorter Ann Hornaday: Yes, I am an airhead. Why do you ask?—and we at Literature R Us try to be even-handed in passing out the sneers…
Thelonious Monk—“Bright Mississippi”
“Bright Mississippi” is “really” a reworking of the famous old tune, “Sweet Georgia Brown”. Well, Georgia never sounded better. Thelonious with Charlie Rouse on sax, John Ore, bass, and Frankie Dunlop, drums. Bruxelles, 1963. Posted by Mr. Wolf
Is Charlie Sykes the new Dick Morris?
Well, I hope so, and I hope Joe Biden or his “people” will take the hint, if not from Charlie himself then the myriad of excellent sources Charlie collects in his recent piece for “The Bulwark”, Joe Biden Needs Four Sister Souljah Moments, explaining why Joe needs to “get tough” with the Democratic Party’s newly…
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. surprises the heck out of me
He sure the heck does. In his stunningly prescient 1997 essay, Has Democracy a Future? (Foreign Affairs—may be behind a paywall), bow-tied, martini-sippin’ Artie,1 whom I frequently dismissed as the jerkiest of knee-jerk liberals, essentially writes the future as us young folks have lived it in the 21st century. The Arthur Schlesinger I read always…