A couple of days ago the news sounded good–or at least what passes for good in the seemingly interminable attempt to talk North Korea out of developing nuclear weapons: North Korea agreed Monday to stop building nuclear weapons and allow … Continue reading →
The other day as I was driving around my blue-as-blue-can-be town of nearly-disappeared anti-Bush bumper stickers, I glimpsed one of the last holdouts: a Volvo proudly emblazoned with a whole bunch of them. The one that particularly saddened me was … Continue reading →
I noticed that my Pajamas profile is up today–so welcome, Pajamas Media readers and Roger Simon readers. Since I had no control whatsoever over the editing process, it was interesting to observe just what parts the profile included of a … Continue reading →
It’ll be like having a look behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz. –Richard Landes, originator of Second Draft, in an interview at Solomonia. By now you may have heard the buzz about Second Draft, a new media watchdog … Continue reading →
When I studied history in grade school and high school, it was my least favorite subject. Dry and dull, a parade of disjointed dates and battles, all the juice had been squeezed out of it–which is a shame, because it … Continue reading →
I’m taking today off to be with family. My son is visiting (the one who convinced me to start the blog). But I wanted to thank everyone for the kind words on my blogaversary (sp?). They mean a lot to … Continue reading →
It’s my one-year blog anniversary. Sort of. Kind of. Why the asterisk? Although the first day I ever posted on this blog was nominally almost exactly a year ago–September 16, 2004–I wrote very little for the first five months. To … Continue reading →
I know Bush must have given an excellent speech last night because a liberal friend of mine pronounced it “moving” and “inspiring” in somewhat awed and surprised tones. Something he said, or perhaps the way he said it, touched her … Continue reading →
I had no idea David Brooks was a comedian, but this column of his is pretty funny stuff (of course, he had some awfully good material to work with). Is it possible that David is any relation to Albert or … Continue reading →
A reader recently alerted me to an astounding article by Martha Gellhorn which appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in October of 1961, forty-four years ago. Gellhorn was quite a story in herself. Beautiful, brilliant, brave, she was the third wife … Continue reading →
There’s a world of difference between skepticism and cynicism. Skeptics doubt and question in an attempt to get at the truth. Cynics doubt because they think that, by definition, every player has bad (or at least selfish) motives. What happens … Continue reading →
The Israeli withdrawal from Gaza (which I supported, by the way, as the best alternative among all the lousy “choices among crazinesses” available to the Israelis at the time) has had some disheartening results. First we had the inevitable but … Continue reading →