Elizabeth Nolan Brown, or “Dizzy Miss Lizzy” as she’s known around town, writes the “Reason Roundup” for Reason magazine’s online site each morning, covering the news that’s hot of the griddle. Usually, she’s excellent—check out last Friday’s riff on the continuing fraud of “sex trafficking”, a joint project of liberals and conservatives to throw people…
Kenny Barron & Elena Pinderhughes—“Shuffle Boil”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVoY1hbnFNg Taking a break from “In Walked Bud” for some fabulous jazz flute, supplied by Elena Pinderhughes. According to online comments, Jonathan Blake is the drummer. The bassist is Kiyoshi Kitagawa. “Shuffle Boil” is a fairly obscure Monk tune. He first recorded it on a date led by saxophonist Gigi Gryce, more or less as…
Lauren Gussis’ “Insatiable”—let me count the clichés. Okay, I give up.
When word hit the street that Lauren Gussis, one of the “geniuses” behind the TV series devoted to heroic mass torturer/murderer Dexter, had come up with something even more shocking—a Netflix original about a fat teen-ager who became not fat and hence “Insatiable”, the howls of outrage among the easily outraged—those who seek to expel…
Daniel Drezner, harrumphing audibly, but not (alas!) intelligibly
Okay, whole lotta’ unpackin’ goin’ on here, whole lotta’ unpackin’ goin’ on. A couple of weeks ago, WashPost guy Dan Drezner, whom I (sometimes) like, uncorked a whole lotta nonsense due to the death of Princeton professor of international affairs Robert Gilpin, writing in praise of Gilpin in a column bearing the pungent subhead “It’s…
Roy Mor & Ofer Ganor—“In Walked Bud”
Once more into the breach, atom-wise
The 73rd anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima has come and gone, prompting Stevens Institute of Technology professor Alex Wellerstein, self-proclaimed “historian of science, secrecy, and nuclear weapons,” to unleash a “debunking the myths” twitterstorm on the subject, prompting me to respond in near-knee-jerk reaction, since I’ve already debunked the debunkers before—mostly here, but also…
Brett Kavanaugh, sounding a lot less innocent
I recently proclaimed myself less than charmed by “liberal feminist” Lisa Blatt’s all too charming endorsement of federal appellate court judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, calling it—a bit crudely, I admit—“high-end legal ass-kissing”. Well, if you’d like some legal substance to supplement my street invective, check out this article in Slate by…
Lenka Molčányiová & Mikuláš Pokorný—“In Walked Bud”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkT39V7OQxY Reduta Jazz Club in Prague 7 June 2018. Monk would be proud, as would Irving Berlin, whose “Blue Skies” provided the original chord structure. Posted by molcanyi
Alan Vanneman’s Mythbusters! Why the “myth” of upward mobility does and does not matter
Robert Samuelson, who is, frankly, rarely my favorite economics pundit, writes a not entirely terrible column, “Upward mobility is a myth”, largely pivoting off a recent study, “The Fading American Dream: Trends In Absolute Income Mobility Since 1940”, issued by the National Bureau Of Economic Research, put together back in March 2017 by a bunch…
Brett Kavanaugh, not so innocent. And likewise Lisa Blatt?
I don’t know Appeals Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh from Adam. Self-proclaimed “liberal feminist” Lisa Blatt calls him a superstar, and says his nomination to the Supreme Court by President Trump deserves speedy bipartisan approval in the Senate. “I have argued 35 cases before the Supreme Court, more than any other woman,” says Blatt. “I worked…