Ryan Crocker, retiring U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and former ambassador to Iraq, where he presided over President Bush’s “surge,” might have a few interesting things to say about U.S. foreign policy in the post 9/11 decade. And, in a recent interview in the New York Times, he does, if “vague and cautious” means the same…
Put down thy Slurpee, Pick up thy Tit
I really don’t know the details of NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s war against what we liberals like to call “Big Soda,” but I do know I’m agin it. If you want to chug down a half gallon of corn syrup-sweetened soda water in one sitting, well, it’s your ass, not mine. But Mayor B’s soda…
Gore the Bore
Yes, that’s harsh, but this is the blogosphere, after all—snark city, the town without pity. In fact, I felt a lot of pity for Gore Vidal. He hit it big while quite young, publishing the 1948 gay shocker The City and the Pillar at age 23. For the next twenty years Vidal had a lot…
Felix Salmon: Freaking Fag Revolutionary or Wall Street Water Boy?
Okay, Felix is not really a freaking fag revolutionary. I’m just fonder of alliteration than truth. But still I wonder about Felix. Recently he was bitching about the malicious tricks that business folk pull on us: “And so merchants will always find ways to charge us more now, if we’re not going to really feel…
Newt Gingrich hath no bottom
It’s difficult to be funny about Newt Gingrich’s latest excess—his shameful exercise in unsourced innuendo in defense of Michele Bachmann and the “National Security Five” that headlined recently in Politico, whose owners are apparently desperate to score free tickets to the upcoming Newt n’ Callista blockbuster, “We Hate Muslims!” Anyone who followed the blow-out presidential…
Chick Corea— “Rhythm-A-Ning”
More “Rhythm-A-Ning.” Chick Corea, piano, Roy Haynes, drums, Miroslav Vitous, bass. Posted by MuzzaJazz
Pseudo-New Yorker
Ham sandwich or notebook? I can deal with the ambiguity. Can you? Legal humor here. “Sorry, dude, but you climb the Mountain of Mental Health on your back! So stop walking and start talking! I’m listening!” “Ready for some couch time, hotshot? Twenty bucks says I’m right!” “Thanks for meeting me half way on this…
Damn Hippies at the U.S. Department of Agriculture
Well, they had to put them somewhere, didn’t they? Every administration has a turkey farm, the place where they put politically connected incompetents and other “sensitive” individuals. During the Reagan Administration it was the Education Department. Under Clinton it was the public affairs office of the Department of Defense, where Linda met Monica. Under Obama…
David Rieff, assigning blame where blame is due, some of the time
Over at Foreign Affairs, David Rieff has a rather portentous, even penumbral, take on world events, notably the concurrent U.S. disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan, taking a few pokes at the liberal optimism that brought these about. Dave’s nut graph, or perhaps “money shot,” is quite prolonged, but, well, in for a penny, in for…
Too gay! Well, except for the Trio
Over at Slate, Dave Weigel is at the scene when Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson engages in a meet and greet along “Dupont Circle’s cafe-lined 17th St. NW in the historical heart of the District’s gay community”—the quote emanating, as far as I can tell, from a Johnson press release. Seventeenth Street is “café-lined,” I…