On Wednesday, May 27th, the New York Times, for which I have a paid digital subscription, ran an “opinion” piece by Republican hit person Peter Wehner, titled “Have Democrats Pulled Too Far Left?”, which rattles through a predictable series of semi-truths and falsehoods regarding domestic issues, politely and nicely dissected by Jonathan Chait here. Well,…
Jawohl, Herr Doktor Professor!
Over at Politico, Klaus Larres (German) and Peter Eltsov (Russian) have a quasi-hagiographical take on German chancellor Angela Merkel, who is in fact an impressive figure.1 Unfortunately, Klaus and Peter aren’t always so impressive themselves, swallowing whole Merkel’s “no nonsense” approach to the financial crisis in Greece, groaning that “some well-meaning but perhaps not very…
The Capitalist System Strikes Back!
The Washington Post has a nice story on the once-nonexistent Cuban real estate market, now springing to life with the prospect of restored Cuban-American relations providing the juice. A few years of free-market growth could create the prosperity that fifty years of Communist oppression virtually extinguished. And Politico reports that U.S. travel to Cuba is…
Republican Cool
Scott Walker thinks that all pregnant women should be forced to submit to an ultrasound procedure, because ultrasounds are “just a cool thing out there,” according to this report from Politico. Perhaps pregnant women could come up with a list of cool things out there for Mr. Walker to submit to, whether he wants to…
Pseudo New Yorker
Legal humor here “See, I’ve got this movie playing in my head, in my head. I’ve got this movie playing in my head, in my head. And this little doohickey is recording it.” “Okay, now, when I yell ‘Action!’, you take off all your clothes, and then, you know, we’ll just go from there.” “I’m…
Who Am I?
It’s well-known that our computers are watching us. If you do a little online research on Smithfield hams or Katy Perry’s underpants, “interest-appropriate” ads will appear on every site you visit. For a while I’ve been seeing a lot of come-ons for an “amazing” video showing a chick who’s half naked and half enclosed in…
Zoot Lives! The 1986 Memorial Concert featuring Gerry Mulligan
A nice salute to Zoot Sims, featuring Gerry Mulligan on baritone sax, sounding very aggressive, with Roger Kellaway, piano, Bill Crow, bass, and Bob Rosengarden, drums. Posted by Jazz Video Guy
Seymour Hersh’s inconvenient truths
Philip Giraldi has a nice—nice, if redundant—piece in the American Conservative pointing out that Seymour M. Hersh’s recent piece in the London Review of Books, “The Killing of Osama bin Laden” is likely to be a lot more accurate than the mainstream media, which somehow resent being told that the US government doesn’t always tell…
Joe Lovano, Danilo Pérez, Richard Bona, & Jack DeJohnette live 2012—“Ask Me Now” & “Think of One”
I’d like to score the world some coke
Everybody—well, at least five—is talking about how much they luv Don “Mad Men” Draper’s chef d’œuvre, “I’d like to buy the world a Coke,” which I’ve mangled just a bit in my headline. Well, let me just say that when I came home from Vietnam and saw this manipulative masterstroke of capitalistic co-option on TV,…