There was, of course, nothing downtown about Harold Brown, unless the Bronx High School of Science and Columbia University count. Brown picked up three degrees from Columbia, including a Ph.D. in physics at age 21. Later on, he served as Secretary of the Air Force and president of the California Institute of Technology before taking…
Author: Alan Vanneman
William Kristol now officially classified as “pathetic”
A week ago I noticed that poor Billy Kristol was so disenchanted with the entire field of Republican presidential candidates that he was calling for some new faces. I (somewhat facetiously) suggested Dan Quayle, but now I think Billy has one-upped me in the sarcasm department by proposing Mike Pompeo. That’s right, Mike Fucking Pompeo,…
Pseudo New Yorker
Legal humor here “You know something, Frenchie, there’s something about you that just doesn’t jibe.” “Am I down a tenner or a tanner? You keep changing it on me.” “What would I like? I would like you to stop saying ‘I say’ every time I take a shot.” “Oh, yeah, I like oolong, but oolong…
Gábor Bolla and Joey Alexander—“Ask Me Now”
Is jazz international? Ask me now! Indonesian piano phenom Joey Alexander teams up with Hungarian saxophonist Gábor Bolla, Swedish bass player Mattias Svensson and Danish drummer Morten Lund. Posted by Mr. Red Panda
Spycraft, a contradiction in terms
I was recently in the WWII section of the DC public library and stumbled across Ben Macintyre’s Operation Mincemeat, a (very) long study of a famous British intelligence gambit written up decades earlier in The Man That Never Was. The Brits arranged for a corpse, ostensibly of a major in the Royal Marines, to wash…
Reading conservative websites can be depressing, study says
Reading conservative websites can be depressing, according to a recent study by Alan Vanneman, who visited two of them, the National Review and the Weekly Standard. “The sites are depressing because conservatives are depressed,” claimed Vanneman. “There’s this Trump thing, which isn’t going away, and the fact that the Republican base hates foreigners, hates free…
What is the deal with CDs these days? Remember CDs? They were round and played music. Noted cartoonist “Sketching Sketcher” points out that they’re still on the market, sometimes at prices that seem just a tad bit high for grandpa technology. I’m not a grandpa, although I could play one on TV, but I still…
Charles Koch, right on substance, wrong on tone
“It’s beneath the president, the dignity of the president, to be doing that,” says Charles Koch, according to this interview in Politico. Mr. Koch was apparently “flabbergasted” by criticism leveled by the president at the Kochs, to wit: “[Y]ou start seeing massive lobbying efforts backed by fossil fuel interests, or conservative think tanks, or the…
David Patrois & Philippe Macé Duo—“Bye-Ya”
Dueling xylophones? Why not? Posted by Philippe Macé
The subtle hypocrisy of the New York Times
The Aug. 24 edition of the New York Times carries an article by David E. Sanger and Michael R. Gordon headlined “Future Risks of an Iran Nuclear Deal” whose third paragraph reads as follows: “Even some of the most enthusiastic backers of the agreement, reached by six world powers with Iran, say they fear Mr….