In his very good new book The Fall of the House of Forbes: The Inside Story of the Collapse of a Media Empire, former Forbes editor Stewart Pinkerton describes the decline of the publication’s significance, and along the way champions the noble tradition of magazine journalism. “There’s an important distinction between one hundred people using …
Nothing in John Brown’s life more became him than the way he took leave of it. One of the strangest and most challenging figures in American history, a combination of practical fiasco and undiminished confidence, Brown was a failed tanner, a failed farmer, and in narrow terms, a failed insurrectionist. As much as anybody, he …
In a happy coincidence, a visit to my sister Rose last week took place on the same day that my cousin Marge and her husband Bob were having a dinner party, and they invited me to join the party. It was a lot of fun, with a lively conversation centering on czarnina and Bob’s squirrel …
In an interview with the editorial board of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Mitt Romney said that he doesn’t support foreclosure relief for the millions of Americans struggling with underwater mortgages, untold numbers of which have been the victims of fraudulent lending or foreclosure practices. “Don’t try to stop the foreclosure process,” said Romney. “Let it …
More than two months ago, Drew Westen, a professor of psychology at Emory University, wrote a piece for the Times in which he criticized President Obama‘s failure to seize the narrative of the political issues of our times. Well, the president has made a lot of appearances in that time, but he still has yet …
In Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi recommends five demands that the Occupy Wall Street protesters ought to set as their agenda: “1. Break up the monopolies. The so-called “Too Big to Fail” financial companies – now sometimes called by the more accurate term “Systemically Dangerous Institutions” – are a direct threat to national security. They are …
This is the Occupy Wall Street encampment on its 26th day. The usually sensible Mayor Bloomberg has announced his intentions to perform a wholly unnecessary removal of the “creature comforts” of these peaceful protestors–sleeping bags, tarps, etc.–in what is obviously an effort to break up the protest and cause the participants to lose “unit cohesiveness” …
ZUCCOTTI PARK, LOWER MANHATTAN, NOON, OCTOBER 13TH Read More »
Writing in The New York Times today, Martin Feldstein, who was the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan, argued for “permanently reducing the mortgage debt hanging over America.” Failure to do so, he writes, “ means that further declines in home prices will continue, preventing the rise in consumer spending needed …
Al Davis, the legendary owner of the Oakland Raiders who died today at 82, was famous for saying something that ought to chiseled onto every lintel in the Pentagon, needle-pointed into a Whitman sampler and hung in a frame on the wall of every member of Congress, and tattooed onto the knuckles of every general …