“It was kind of a very rapid process. Everybody was looking forward to getting out of town because of the snowstorm. I think we probably should have had more discussion about it, given the blowback that there is.”—John McCain, explaining why he and 46 other Republican senators only acted like idiots. I mean, it’s not…
Pseudo New Yorker
Legal humor here. “Damn! Who let the dogs out?” “Just remember, Smedley, if they don’t have a ceiling, we don’t have a floor.” “Wow! Who knew the San Andreas Fault could be the key to corporate advancement?” “I guess they think they’ve been oppressed too!” “Risk Management 101, Smedley. Never volunteer.” “Let this be our…
What critics don’t get about what Republicans don’t get about Iran
“Thanks, Tom Cotton. You Just Got Us a Hard-line Supreme Leader,” snipes the highly intelligent Mehdi Khalaji, writing in Politico Magazine. In their controversial letter to “the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton and 46 other Republican senators suggested that even if Washington comes to a nuclear deal with President…
OSKA T.roia Quartet—“Four in One”
“Oska T” is a Monk composition. I don’t really understand the full meaning of the name for the “OSKA T.roia Quartet,” but here they are playing Monk’s “Four in One.” Luca Ventimiglia, vibraphone, Ilfat Sadykov, sax, Mattia Vendredi, bass, and Andrea Bruzzone, drums. Posted by MattiaParis
Alan Vanneman visits the world’s most notorious jazz club
That should be “visited 45 years ago,” because that’s when it happened. I recently came across an article in Jazz Times that revisited the memory of Slugs, a club on the lower East Side that was, according to James Gavin, “jazz’s most notorious nightclub, the gates of the underworld.” “[N]ight fell, and the unlit streets…
Cart before the horse
Daniel Larison has a post about Sen. Ron Johnson’s less than brilliant demand for military action against Iran. Dan remarks that “Iran hawks such as Johnson support preventive war against Iran because they are excessively afraid that Iran will eventually acquire nuclear weapons.” Actually, that’s backwards. It should run like this: “Iran hawks such as Johnson pretend…
The apocalyptic messianism of Benjamin Netanyahu
Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent exercise in arrant knavery has received a gratifying amount of pushback, thanks to Fareed Zakaria, Roger Cohen, and Daniel Larison, among others. As Zakaria emphasizes, the current imbroglio is the result of the Bush Administration’s decision, back in 2005, to torpedo an earlier agreement that would have limited the Iranian…
The less than impeccable logic of William Bratton
Over at Politico, Chris Mitchell has an article on New York’s once and current police commissioner, William Bratton that’s well worth reading, though not without its logical flaws. On page 3 of the article, Mitchell discusses Bratton’s lack of enthusiasm for Mayor William de Blasio’s decision to legalize possession of small amounts of marijuana. “The…
Pseudo New Yorker
Legal humor here. “Okay, you were right and I was wrong. Global warming is for real. Now will you get off your ass and start swimming?” “I don’t know what to say, Roger. I always thought I’d be the one to give up show business.” “Yeah, and what do we do if the tide isn’t…
The sound of one hand clapping
“Unenthused Rand Paul Lifelessly Applauds Netanyahu Speech” bellows the National Review’s Brendan Bordelon, an outrage that, for many Republicans, seems even to eclipse the latest Hillarygate. Over at The Week, Michael Brendan Dougherty points out that applause monitoring has long been a feature of the totalitarian mind-set, citing Josef Stalin, Kim Jong Un, and now…