I recently stumbled across a piece by Damon Linker—one not related to the burning question “Would you like your daughter to be a whore?”†—that intrigued me to the point of tracking down and reading his little book The Theocons, published back in 2006, telling the tale of Richard John Neuhaus and the First Things gang,…
Author: Alan Vanneman
James Thurber, A Reader’s Guide, Part 23
INTRODUCTION This is the 23rd episode of “James Thurber, A Reader’s Guide,” a rambling consideration of Thurber’s works, examining his life and work in some detail. Generally, these appear every Friday. The links to the first part and the most recent part are given below. Part 23 continues the discussion of Thurber’s 1942 collection, My…
Here come the blimps! Rinse, and repeat every ten years
Way back in the day, so far back that Ronald Reagan still had a functioning short-term memory, I worked for a very smart woman who had an odd passion for blimps. Not dirigibles, mind you. Dee was totally not a rigid frame gal. I don’t know why she insisted on the distinction so, you know,…
Pseudo New Yorker
Legal humor here. All cartoons here. and here “So, we’ve got lots of bird feed, right?” “The great thing is they shit green.” “Yeah, that’s why they call it ‘Super-Gro’!” “OK, now we know where an 800-pound sparrow eats. Where do they sleep?” “What would be really cool is if you could hypnotize them.” “I…
How much does foreign policy rhetoric matter? Not enough, and too much
Over at the American Conservative, Daniel Larison riffs on a column by Dan Drezner, who claims that we shouldn’t worry about foreign policy statements like those recently dished out by Hillary Clinton that seem more interested in striking poses than solving problems. Says Drezner, “The most important fact about American foreign policy and public opinion…
Afghanistan expels U.S. reporters. Obama tries to put them in jail.
There is a difference. Afghanistan here, Obama there
James Thurber, A Reader’s Guide, Part 22
INTRODUCTION This is the 22th episode of “James Thurber, A Reader’s Guide,” a rambling consideration of Thurber’s works, examining his life and work in some detail. Generally, these appear every Friday. The links to the first part and the most recent part are given below. Part 22 continues the discussion of Thurber’s 1942 collection, My…
Hillary Clinton, Warrior Princess
By now, you may have read that Hillary Clinton’s interview with Jeffrey Goldberg was not quite the unadulterated love-fest that Goldberg described in his intro to the rap session. It was only 99 percent unadulterated. At the Daily Beast, Michael Tomasky wants us to believe that Hillary isn’t really a neocon. She’s just a “muscular…
Ferguson: White folks being white folks, cops being cops, and black revolutionaries being bad asses
Those white folks down in Ferguson, Missouri are clever, aren’t they? In a classic “winner deals and dealer wins” situation, the white power structure has arranged for city elections to be held on off years, in April! Hey, what’s wrong with having an electorate composed of the citizens who care, who work hard, who aren’t…
Tony Malaby, William Parker, & Nasheet Waits—“Tamarindo”
Live from Sound It Out at the Greenwich House Music School, July 31, 2013. Parker is on bass and Waits on drums. Posted by Scott Friedlander All jazz videos here