MODERN ECONOMICS
From The New York Times, July 26, 2011. “This chart should accompany all discussions of the Debt Ceiling,” says Jim Fallows of The Atlantic. Amen to that.
WHEN THE PEOPLE DON’T TRUST THE GOVERNMENT
In one of the most perceptive articles I have read in a long time, pollster par excellance Stan Greenberg wonders why Democrats are not finding better traction with the voters. “With high unemployment and the rich getting richer,” writes Greenberg in the New York Times, “you would think that voters of average means would flock …
HERE’S TO SUCCESS
For the past few months I’ve been very fortunate to be working with Henry Bushkin, an attorney from Los Angeles who for nearly two decades represented the peerless Johnny Carson. (Yes, Henry is the famous `Bombastic Bushkin’ who showed up in Johnny’s monologues with some frequency.) Henry and I do not get to talk face-to-face …
SPREADING THE NEWS. . .
Mr. Media, a/k/a the charming Bob Andelman, recently interviewed me for his radio program/podcast/column, and we had a delightful time talking about not only And the War Came, but also bygone days at Spy and Playboy. It was a lot of fun. Anyone who would like to listen to the program can find it here. …
PALMETTO STATE PINHEADS
At the Republican National Convention in San Diego in 1984, UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick memorably labeled the Democratic Party, which was meeting that year in San Francisco. “And now, the American people, proud of our country, proud of our freedom, proud of ourselves, will reject the San Francisco Democrats and send Ronald Reagan back to …
TO THE BASTILLE
In The New York Times last Sunday, John F. Burns wrote a lamentation for the state of his native Britain, and the recognition of the overall depressing complexity of the hacking scandal, the corruption of the three major institutions of the media, the police, and Parliament, really left one with the sinking, sickening feeling that …
REDISTRICTING AND REFORM
At the risk of making myself part of a set of Russian nesting pundits, please let me take this opportunity to endorse Fareed Zakaria‘s column in yesterday’s Washington Post about how to escape our dysfunctional politics, which is itself an endorsement of a column former Republican congressman Mickey Edwards wrote for the The Atlantic. Edwards …
WHEN MYSTIQUE BECOMES MISTAKE
Did Grover Norquist blow it a little bit yesterday when he played the “what the meaning of `is’ is” game with his famous No New Tax Edict, which he wields over Republcians faithful like a scythe? Plain as a guillotine, the edict requires all Republican candiates to forswear raising taxes while in office. First, he …
50 YEARS AGO: THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN AT 100
Fifty years ago (fifty years ago tomorrow, to be precise), my mom and dad drove my brother and me from our home in Baltimore MD to Culpepper County, Virginia, about sixty miles away, for a centennial reenactment of the first Battle of Bull Run, which took place 150 years ago today. About 2000 reenactors restaged …
50 YEARS AGO: THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN AT 100 Read More »
CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON–LIVE!
The highly revealing Parliamentary hearings into Rupert Murdoch and the News Corp. hacking scandal were interrupted yesterday when spectator Jonathan May-Bowles, a.k.a. “Jonnie Marbles” tried to throw a shaving cream pie at the media baron but was thwarted by his wife, Wendi Deng. In an article in The Guardian, May-Bowles defended himself. “Simply put, I …