Well, now that all the fuss over Confidence Men, Ron Suskind’s “did not/did too” exposé of the furious infighting for influence among President Obama’s economic policy advisors has died down, we can review the matter without having to decide whether Larry Summers is a complete asshole 24/7 or if he occasionally has some downtime. So…
Slate Magazine: America’s Kill Zone
Slate Magazine, supposedly a liberal spot on the web, has gone all medieval on our asses. Will Saletan, whom I’ve praised in the past, gets more than hysterical on the subject of Anwar al-Awlaki. “Don’t cry for Awlaki,” Will tells us. “He got what he deserved. He left this country to wage war against it….
Marco Benevento—“Bye-ya”
Rick Perry loves Mexicans? No way, John! Rick Perry hates Mexicans!
Poor Rick Perry. The Republican masses have found him guilty of having a heart! He wants to help kids even if their parents aren’t Americans! Rick, are you sure you ain’t talking with a lisp? Cause you sound like a damn homo to me. Well, to prove that his heart is true—and cold as ice—Rick…
Totally not the New Yorker
This week’s cartoon is submitted by Ben, that bike-ridin’ fool from Harrisburg, PA. Ben “explains” that this is a surrealistic cartoon. Well, being literary tends to make one literal, so I assumed that that object in the foreground is a foot, belonging to someone who I’ll also assume is a guy and the dog’s owner….
A racial slur corrected
A couple of days ago I chastised Wall Street for, among other things, giving President Obama a hard time because he “hasn’t been publicly thanking them 5 times a day for the privilege of kissing their fat white asses 10 times a day.” Well, I now stand corrected. Robert Johnson, founder of BET, has furiously…
Murder most foul: Obama hath murdered Anwar al-Awlaki and America’s conscience
The more I read about America’s latest triumph, the murder of Anwar al-Awlaki, the more depressed I get. Obama appears to be very proud of his murder—a murder of his very own, so to speak, since it was the Obama Administration that added Anwar to Uncle Sam’s hit list. Also killed were Samir Khan, a…
Ya gotta have friends, or at least one friend
Add New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to the list of Republican candidates and non-candidates who assert that we must not “turn our back on the world.” Republicans insist that the U.S. must be engaged continuously in some manner of good works all around the globe—which mostly but not entirely means either killing people or selling…
Rick Perry, ahead of his time
Poor Rick Perry! When he busted into American consciousness as a bona-fide candidate for the Republican nomination, he had a killer rap: “I’m Rick Perry, bitch! I hang more men before breakfast than y’all do all day!” Rick’s no apologies, what you see is what you get image, of which he is obviously very proud,…
Shakespeare yes, anatomy not so much
The NYT has a review by Dwight Garner of Stephen Greenblatt’s The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, which is probably better than its title. Greenblatt’s book tells the story of Renaissance humanist Poggio Bracciolini, who found a manuscript copy of De Rerum Natura (“On the Nature of Things”), the Epicurean epic of the Roman…