Archive: May 2008

The soaring price of commodities worldwide has been a disaster for the poor, with reports coming out of Haiti that some people don’t have enough money to pay for food…

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P.D. James’s 1992 novel, The Children of Men, recently realized in a fine film by Alfonso Cuarón, jumps thirty-five years into the future to give a dismal view of Britain…

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“The military tribunals are about justice and upholding proud American traditions—not part of a debate on whether the war in Iraq was, or is, a good thing.” A week ago…

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In a recent story about Hillary Clinton, I stated that Congressman Charles Rangel had, like Clinton, accepted political contributions from attorney Melvyn Weiss, who recently pleaded guilty to paying kickbacks… 

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A 7.9-magnitude earthquake centered in Sichuan Province, China, left 50,000 dead and 5,000,000 homeless. Outside Beichuan Middle School, where 1,000 students and teachers died, parents waited for the bodies of…

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A few weeks ago, I received an email advertising a free public event at Harvard University. “Award-winning and bestselling author Jonathan Franzen reviews The Corrections with James Wood, Harvard Professor… 

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Größers wolltest auch du, aber die Liebe zwingt All uns nieder, das Leid beuget gewaltiger, Doch es kehret umsonst nicht Unser Bogen, woher er kommt. Aufwärts oder hinab! herrschet in…

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Jedes Verlangen nach Ruhm ist ehrbar, aller Kampf um das Tüchtige lobenswürdig; mag doch jedem Stand seine eigene Ehre bleiben ihm eine eigene Zierde gewährt sein; jene Ahnenbilder will ich…

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The week began with the forgotten Josiah Mitchell Morse, (who as of May 14 has been granted his Wikipedia page) and ends with the very few sentences from his typewriter… 

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Once more I’m going to return to the topic of those blogger roundtables organized by the Pentagon, which I have discussed several times since last summer and most recently last…

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From the Star-Tribune: What would prompt Bloomington mayor Gene Winstead to vogue down a Mall of America runway modeling a t-shirt and Zubaz? Nothing short of the unveiling of the…

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A few weeks back I posted an item about a 2005 Senate trip Barack Obama made to Azerbaijan during which he lobbied dictator Ilham Aliyev on behalf of McDonald’s and…

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Will Perry is the son of Bob Perry, a major funder of the Swift Boat Vets and the G.O.P. Will is also a G.O.P. donor, although he gives less than…

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A number of readers complained to me or to Harper’s about that delightful Hillary-as-Hitler video I posted the other day, which was created by comedian James Adomian. But the public…

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That’s the question raised by this terrific Wall Street Journal story. The firm is GlobalOptions, an extremely well-connected company run by, among others, former FBI and CIA officials. The Kazakh…

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I know Hillary Clinton is hard up for dough, but should her campaign really have taken money from a suspected (and subsequently convicted) kickback conspirator? In June of 2007, attorney… 

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Some readers of Martin Amis’s new collection of essays, The Second Plane: Terror and Boredom (Alfred A. Knopf), have found the marriage of nouns in its subtitle a consternation, an…

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From: Gary McCardell Subject: Exclusive Video: Hillary in the Führerbunker, by Ken Silverstein, May 12, 2008 On your website, Ken Silverstein posted a link to a video political parody showing…

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The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that Sheldon Adlelson, a major donor to the G.O.P., has been questioned by police as part of a corruption probe. S. Daniel Abraham of Slim-Fast,… 

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The Washington Post reports today that Barack Obama and John McCain are both working to freeze out “527” groups—named after a provision in the tax code—which are not allowed to…

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Josiah Mitchell Morse was blessed, by birth, with a beautiful American name, but such luck hasn’t been enough to ensure him and his work a place in the cultural memory.…

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Sidney Blumenthal has written for The New Republic, the Washington Post, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, and most recently served as Washington editor to Salon.com and as a contributor… 

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Barack Obama recently severed all links with Robert Malley, an informal Middle East policy adviser, after the latter “confessed” that he had met with the Palestinian group Hamas. And in…

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Caught in the Web, 1860. The military junta in Myanmar put the official death toll from last week’s Cyclone Nargis (Urdu for “daffodil”) at 28,458, while foreign observers, taking into…

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Well, I may be soft on Hillary, but this is very funny. (Not safe for work or for the easily offended.)… 

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Doug Goodyear, who had been picked by John McCain’s campaign to run the G.O.P. convention this summer, resigned over the weekend after Newsweek reported that a lobbying firm he heads…

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Venuta la sera, mi ritorno a casa ed entro nel mio scrittoio; e in sull’uscio mi spoglio quella veste cotidiana, piena di fango e di loto, e mi metto panni…

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