Michael O’Donnell, writing in the Washington Monthly, takes down Barry Seldes’s Leonard Bernstein: The Political Life of an American Musician, which blames Lennie’s artistic collapse on the election of Ronald Reagan, rather than booze and boys. Well, it’s a theory. Via Arts and Letters (again).
Let them wear Nikes
Nice piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education by Mara Hvistendahl on “The Great Forgetting: 20 Years After Tiananmen Square”, via Arts & Letters. Seen largely through the eyes of Kang Zhengguo, author of Confessions: An Innocent Life in Communist China, who participated in the famous demonstrations, the article describes how the Chinese government dealt…
The bad news is that the bank is foreclosing; the really bad news is that Megan McArdle is writing an article about you
Poor Edmund Andrews, a once-happy economics reporter for the New York Times. Not so long ago, Ed went through a mid-life crisis, divorcing (expensively) his first wife and re-marrying. Despite a settlement that effectively cut his take-home pay in half, and despite a new wife whose money-management skills, and her work ethic, both seemed dubious,…
Knocking Flannery Around
The publication of Brad Gooch’s Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor has prompted a number of excellent essays about Flannery on the web (see Christopher Benfey here and Joseph O’Neill here ). I was pleased to see Flannery treated with less than reverence by both writers. Stories like “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”…
An ignominy of Democrats
Nancy Pelosi’s notorious “I never said I didn’t know the CIA was waterboarding I only said I didn’t know about it when they said I knew about it” press conference wasn’t quite as bad as lot of people are saying. (You can view it here.) Unfortunately, Nancy’s been lapped by Harry “Yes, I am a…
Richard Posner fools me again
I guess that should be Richard A. Posner, because that’s how Dick likes to bill himself on his book jackets. If you read this blog assiduously, you’re probably aware that no one gets my goat quite so often as the learned judge. I never liked his snooty, know-it-all attitude, but it was his little book,…
That Jew!
No, it isn’t a new sitcom starring Sarah Silverman channeling Marlo Thomas. It’s a term that Arkansas State Senator, and potential U.S. Senate candidate, Kim Hendren used when referring to Sen. Chuck Schumer: “At the meeting I was attempting to explain that unlike Sen. Schumer, I believe in traditional values, like we used to see…
Thoughts on Chairman Bill
‘Pup was once asked in a published interview if he were aware that roughly 10 percent of the U.S. male population is homosexual. “If that’s the case then I’ve met them all.”’ That’s perhaps the sweetest meat from Christopher’s memoir Losing Mum and Pup, which recounts the death of his parents William F. and Patricia…
Richard Cohen, conflicted
Richard Cohen is conflicted. On the one hand, torture seems like a bad thing. On the other hand, this Cheney fellow, he says it works. “He says he knows of two CIA memos that support his contention that the harsh interrogation methods worked and that many lives were saved.” “Cheney says he once had the…