Nothing is going to get done about the abuses in Congressional redistricting that almost certainly going to take place next year, especially now that the GOP has seized the whip hand in so many states with victories in gubernatorial and state legislature races. As Aaron Blake reported yesterday in The Washington Post, “When the next …
There is no shortage of self-analysis about America’s position, insightful and otherwise, especially this week. Sometimes the views of other can offer an altogether helathful shock. The German news magazine Der Spiegel this week offers a lengthy cover story called “A Superpower in Decline: Is the American Dream Over?” Some of their observations: “The fall …
On the heels of last night’s big Republican wins in the midterm elections (control of the House, several more Senate seats, a whole bunch of governorships and state legislatures), there is a kind of reasoning going on this morning that follows this line: people didn’t like the health care bill, therefore they didn’t like big …
In The Washington Post last Sunday, the social scientist Charles Murray wrote one of those uncommon articles that manages to intrigue and infuriate all at once. Murray’s thesis is that the America’s elite is out of touch with “the real America.” Writes Murray, “We know, for one thing, that the New Elite clusters in a …
According to an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Marvin Olasky of the Christian magazine World, has a new interview with former GOP House majority leader Dick Armey (below) in which the Texas Republican and Tea Party Svengali says that Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton would “bond” over wine and cigars while sharing stories about their …
The illustrator Zina Saunders is the daughter of Norm Saunders, the prolific illustrator whose work first captivated me in the early sixties when I bought my first pack of the strangely gripping Mars Attacks! cards. Zina has turned out to be a pretty wonderful political caricaturist. As you can see form the cover of the …
In 1998, when I was editing the Notebook section of Time, I had to find someone to compose a 300 word eulogy for Tammy Wynette, the great country singer who had died that week. I decided to approach a fledgling short story writer named Roseanne Cash; of course, it didn’t hurt that Cash was a …
Repatriated Russian spy Anna Chapman, posing for Mucovite Maxim. In the immortal words of The Beatles: Show me around your snow-peaked mountains way down south Take me to your daddy’s farm Let me hear your balalaikas ringing out Come and keep your comrade warm I’m back in the USSR Hey you don’t know how lucky …
In The Guardian, Rick Gekoski elegantly makes the point that literary culture is disappearing. “Supposing that we were back in the year 1974, and playing a game of Humiliation (later made popular in David Lodge‘s Changing Places) in which you earn points by naming books that you haven’t read and which you think the other …
Our old dog Vicki has been spending a lot of time on the lawn by herself. She did this a bit over the summer, but not this much, and never in her younger years. It’s an awfully nice day here, and we have a canine house guest that Vicki can’t stand. But we’re concerned that …