A Thorn Among the Roses

Perspective

2011-06-24T10:15:00.000-07:00

There are rumors that Gabrielle Giffords's husband, Mark Kelly, may run for U.S. Senate from Arizona. Or anyway, here is a rumor to that effect.Wow. Trying to place myself in Mark Kelly's shoes: My wife has been a target of threats, harassment, and finally a near-successful assassination attempt, due to her work in politics. Now she is disabled and needs daily rehab for a brain injury, from

Ronaldo retires

2011-02-14T14:12:00.000-08:00

Slate soccer writer Brian Phillips, being awesome as usual, writing about Ronaldo, who announced his retirement yesterday.As a media figure, Ronaldo was never cool in the ruthless-visionary way of Zidane or in the lost-album-cover manner of Beckham. He seemed affable, funny, a little ingenuous, a little strange. Those qualities made him human, but they also made him a terrible fit for modern

Lombardi blogging

2010-02-01T09:39:00.000-08:00

There was a 1973 made-for-TV bio of Vince Lombardi, Legend In Granite, starring Ernest Borgnine. There is a scene when Lombardi is in his first training camp as the newly-hired coach of the woefully bad, underachieving Green Bay Packers. Lombardi has been brought in to instill discipline and get back to fundamentals, and in his first team meeting holds up a pigskin and intones, solemn as the

Quick answer

2010-01-25T12:38:00.000-08:00

MoveOn e-mails me this afternoon -- subject line "Quick question for you?"It's no longer clear whether Congress will pass a comprehensive health care reform bill this year.The White House and Congress will decide within days whether or not to go forward with reform—and before they do, it's critical they know the impact that decision will have in terms of participation in the next election.So

"Forty-one! Forty-one!"

2010-01-20T11:59:00.000-08:00

This was the victory chant at Scott Brown's rally last night. How completely absurd: (1) that the revelers were so giddy at their party's strengthened ability, still as the opposition minority, to prevent anything from getting done; and (2) the idea that this is the magic number in modern day Washington. 41 No votes out of 100, in the most dubiously democratic assembly in the developed world.

Haiti

2010-01-13T06:02:00.000-08:00

Thoughts and prayers for the people of Haiti, which was struck by a major earthquake yesterday.

Higher ed reform

2010-01-12T07:05:00.000-08:00

Via Ezra Klein, an interesting piece by Kevin Carey in Democracy about the need for reform in American higher education. The main takeaway: The marketplace in US colleges operates on reputation, not information – there is a paucity of comparative outcomes data on how well, e.g., business departments’ graduates perform in business – and the elite colleges (via a powerful lobbying shop in

Beach read

2009-08-20T15:24:00.001-07:00

The fam and I had a week's vacation at the Outer Banks of N.C., where we had a most excellent time. We stayed on Hatteras Island, in a house that's within a 20-minute walk of the ocean, and whose property backs onto Pamlico Sound, with a dock that's ideal for swimming, fishing, kayaking, or just chilling with a beverage and some reading material. We've stayed at this house (owned by a friend)

Blade

2009-08-20T14:26:00.000-07:00

Do you ever have a day at the office like this? For legitimate work-related reasons, I Googled the name of a woman who is a mental health counselor, trying to get her contact information. To my surprise, I learned that she apparently used to be a DJ on an AOR radio station here in Raleigh in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Which set me off on an online reading tangent. There actually is a Wikipedia entry

Beehive

2009-07-13T11:41:00.001-07:00

This NY Times profile is notable for its no-holds-barred interview with Sarah Palin's hairdresser. Nice get.Also, I hate it when somebody writes on my kid with a Sharpie. That shit will take weeks to rub off.

A two-way street

2009-04-01T05:40:00.000-07:00

Pastor Dan, from yesterday:It's reasonable for a scientist to expect that scientific discussions be conducted under the guiding framework of science. What is not reasonable is for that same scientist to take umbrage at the religious framework for the mere fault of existence, or to expect that a "rational" worldview should necessarily dominate moral discourse.If the faithful are required to engage

Framing and Shaking

2009-03-31T09:10:00.000-07:00

My comment, reposted from the Faith and Leadership site:*This may be beside the point of why the link was posted, but I object to the way the AIG bonus problem is being characterized. The Columbia professor takes a significant ethical failure and treats it as a PR challenge.Part of the problem is that Wall Street has a different understanding of the word “bonus” than normal people do. (By “normal

Paul Harvey

2009-03-03T13:43:00.000-08:00

Paul Harvey died the other day. He was an occasional companion who insinuated himself into my affections when I was a kid; I think of his voice coming out of a car radio, me in the back seat riding with my parents. An obituary (which I can’t seem to find right now) quoted a radio industry personage marveling at Harvey’s gift for and mastery of the medium, which sounds right, come to think of it

Springsteen at the Super Bowl

2009-02-02T21:01:00.000-08:00

I really enjoyed Bruce and the E Street Band's performance at the Super Bowl Sunday evening. I thought I'd make a note since it's rare for something on TV to bring tears to my eyes, and for reasons I don't entirely understand, Bruce made me tear up.Frankly, I haven't listened to a new Springsteen record beginning-to-end in 20 years. High school and college were my Springsteen years, high school

Parental Grade Grubbing

2009-01-28T10:19:00.000-08:00

The public schools in Fairfax County, Virginia have succumbed to a concerted lobbying effort by parents to relax the grading scale. In the future, a 90 will earn a kid an A; from 1981 until now, a score of 94 was required.This is a cancerous way of thinking. It's a straight line from this piece of news to the recent news that Merrill Lynch paid its managers million-dollar bonuses, drawn from

Two ways of looking at Obama: the sportswriter and the sociologist

2009-01-21T19:32:00.000-08:00

Here it is, my obligatory collector's edition Obama Inauguration post. First, tedious though it may be, I must mention a couple of varieties of post that I can't make.I’ve enjoyed the posts at Talking Points Memo the past several days where readers have shared the heartfelt personal meanings they sense in Obama’s inauguration. I cannot make such a post. In this year’s election I was focused

Sailin' Shoes

2008-12-16T17:05:00.001-08:00

Amazing, yet fitting, if the presidency of George W. Bush is remembered in the YouTube hive mind for Bush's having shoes fired at him during a press conference in Iraq.In the big scheme of things, I know Rick Perlstein is right and we shouldn't applaud physical assaults upon heads of state. But I was delighted to see Dubya being nearly pelted by footwear. It's quite poetic, an Iraqi using this

Righteous Dahlia

2008-12-01T20:26:00.000-08:00

Writing in Newsweek, Fareed Zakaria remarked that, in our current worldwide economic crisis, we are living history: are living through a seismic shift that will permanently alter many of the conditions of life that we’ve taken for granted. TNR’s Michael Crowley responded: gee, what about 9/11? Wasn’t that a momentous historical event, huh, Fareed? Granted, these were throwaway remarks, but

Drive-by

2008-11-21T08:42:00.000-08:00

What good is getting our first African-American president if I can't get a blog post out of it? All I can say at the moment is, I always seem to have more to say about politics when I'm unhappy with how things are going than when I'm satisfied and hopeful.Here at least is something on the economy: Michael Lewis in Portfolio magazine, on the end of Wall Street as we know it. I'll grade myself on

“Rock On”

2008-11-04T09:23:00.000-08:00

(The parting instructions of the Democratic Party poll greeter at my district this morning)Nothing left to do but watch the returns. The thing about this presidential campaign is, it’s been evident that Obama had the lead and the inside track since late September: since the economic/bailout crisis and McCain’s spastic response to it. So for Democrats, the last month has been an exercise in not

Fugitive From Hippocrates

2008-11-03T08:30:00.000-08:00

Don't even ask how I found this, but: A fascinating profile of a small-town black-market abortionist and baby broker in mid-20th century Appalachia.

Change I Can Believe In

2008-10-31T09:55:00.001-07:00

I was at the Detroit airport two Sundays ago, having a sandwich and a beer during a layover. Who knows why, but this bar & grill had its TV tuned, not to NFL football, but to a pro-am charity bowling event in which NBA basketball stars were paired up with pro bowlers. I think Dwyane Wade sponsored this thing; it was like the old Bob Hope celebrity golf tournaments, translated from the links to

Bucket Brigade

2008-09-22T14:09:00.000-07:00

Today Washington is in a frenzy to pass a bill to bail out Wall Street banks. About the Bush Administration’s initial proposal, I can’t argue with Paul Campos’s take at Lawyers Guns & Money. L’etat, c’est moi is about right. Bush’s friends in high places never suffer the sting of failure, not when average taxpayers can be made to suffer it for them. John Cassidy comments at the New Yorker

Culture War Round-Up

2008-09-17T12:24:00.000-07:00

Tim Burke has been reading Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland and shares some thoughts about the origins of the culture wars that Nixon fueled and that are with us to this day. This is a great post, with great comments attached to it.Part of his point is that the culture wars are not entirely trumped-up, that there are some real grievances underlying them. Burke cites Jane Jacobs as the “good Nixon,” a

Tippecanoe and Palin Too

2008-09-10T10:09:00.001-07:00

William Henry Harrison was the Whig candidate for President in 1840. Harrison's fame was as a hero of the Indian wars: he commanded the victorious U.S. forces at the Battle of Tippecanoe. John Tyler was his running mate: a cynical choice, recruited from the Democratic Party to the Whigs expressly so he could be placed on this fusion ticket. The campaign is remembered for the slogan "Tippecanoe

Riding A Tiger

2008-09-10T09:57:00.000-07:00

Today we learn that the word lipstick is a registered trademark of the Republican Party. I’m grinding my molars to a nub over here.I’d like to keep this short; I’ve been working on a post for days, and every 12 hours or so my opinions change. I’ll say this for Sarah Palin, she has shaken things up, made them interesting. I can’t think of a similar instance of someone going from “Who?” to Most

Sarah Sixpack

2008-09-03T09:29:00.000-07:00

This blog has a new tagline, "grounded in a recognizable American lifestyle," courtesy of this article about Sarah Palin in Politico. Because it's equally true of your humble blogger, who humbly submits his name for consideration for the GOP presidential ticket in 2012.(I never realized Politico was quite such a cyber-birdcage liner.)For a generation now, Republicans have pounded home the

Rope-A-Dope?

2008-08-30T17:55:00.000-07:00

Sorry, this could have been folded into the last post: Read Matthew Yglesias on the Palin selection, and more generally on a difference in approach between the Obama campaign operation and the McCain campaign.Obama's spokespeople have their own way of doing things, and their own timetable. It's enough to make working journalists annoyed, and even more casual observers like me nervous. Bill

Disjointed thoughts about Sarah Palin

2008-08-30T17:36:00.000-07:00

I'm 75% percent sure that the choice of Sarah Palin will prove to be a disaster for John McCain, and 25% terrified that it was a stroke of genius. From all I can tell, McCain really wanted Lieberman but was told that Lieberman wouldn't fly. McCain dislikes Mitt Romney, an insiders' favorite, plus Romney had other strikes against him. Other plausible candidates seemed blah. The deadline was

The Obama party

2008-08-29T09:23:00.000-07:00

So we dragged our kids to our friends’ house for an Obama convention speech party. My wife and I were tired as usual on a Thursday night, so we wavered. The debate was Getting The Kids (and us) to Bed at a Decent Hour on a School Night, or The Family Sitting Rapt in Front of the TV Watching History Being Made, and the latter conceit won out. We had beers and sodas, we all ate pizza, and the

Credit where due

2008-08-28T15:11:00.001-07:00

Bill Clinton's speech last night in Denver filled in many of the gaps in Hillary's speech two nights ago. Let's just get that on the record. Bill saying that Obama is ready for the office, and is the right person at this time -- that was good to hear.It'd be nice to have a Democratic Convention we didn't parse so closely, one of these quadrennia.Oh well, off to an Obama-speech party.

Never seen a PUMA except in a zoo

2008-08-27T13:32:00.000-07:00

I decided to add Pandagon to the blogroll here. Welcome back, Jesse Taylor. Also, if one has a blogroll it should include Michael Tomasky, the best liberal pundit Morgantown, West Virginia has ever produced.Tomasky today listed some things Hillary Clinton could have said in her convention speech last night but didn’t. I didn’t watch, I confess, although my wife did and thought Hillary did a

Joe Biden

2008-08-25T10:43:00.000-07:00

Sure, fine by me. I started to write, I don’t think any plausible VP choice of Obama's would have put me off terribly, but that’s not exactly right. I’m in the bag for Obama, I’m going to vote for him regardless. But if he had made a longshot counterintuitive choice like Brian Schweitzer, I would have called that a mistake, emphasizing Obama’s relative newness. If he had made a big lurch in a

Fantasy baseball hopes on life support

2008-08-25T09:17:00.000-07:00

I just fell to fourth place out of 14 teams in my fantasy league. I’d been in third for quite a while, and was really hoping to climb to second; the guy who almost always wins the league is running away with it, per usual, so second place will definitely be a moral victory. Instead I fell back. Factors: My usual inability to make a profitable trade. My usual lack of astuteness at judging

John Edwards and the Case of the Implied Covenant

2008-08-11T12:04:00.000-07:00

Alternate title: I Hate It When Mickey Kaus Can Say “I Told You So.”When we first met John Edwards, he was already a self-made man, if a rather one-dimensional one. He was a brilliantly successful lawyer with a lovely family but no political or civic commitments to speak of. (Prior to the 1990s it’s not clear that Edwards voted in public elections, that’s how little engaged he was.)Then his

Entitled Mediocrity, a.k.a. The Dubya Administration

2008-08-05T08:38:00.000-07:00

William Deresiewicz has an article in The American Scholar, "The Disadvantages of an Elite Education," that is getting some well-deserved play recently. I suppose it's reminiscent of David Brooks's "The Organization Kid" from 2001, but the 2008 version adds a fitting post-Enron, post-G.W. Bush perspective. Deresiewicz writes from his recent experience teaching Ivy League students, and comments

Hacks and wonks

2008-06-23T13:45:00.000-07:00

(The news about George Carlin's death, strangely enough, reminded of this post I wanted to make.) It tickles me to learn that Nate Silver, a top sabermetrician (aka baseball stats nerd) whom I’ve been reading for several years now in Baseball Prospectus, is making a name as a politics blogger. I’d been thinking, hmm, where have I heard that name before? Newsweek magazine clued me in.I could go

George Carlin, 1937-2008

2008-06-23T06:54:00.000-07:00

I can't claim to have been a big fan. I never owned any of his albums or books. He was one of those show-biz figures I liked and enjoyed bumping into, on the Tonight Show or where have you. Truthfully, I'll have a similar feeling of sadness when Cheech and/or Chong passes away, though I recognize that Carlin was a more important figure. I liked knowing he was around, and I rooted for him in

Hillary to pack it in?

2008-06-03T16:44:00.000-07:00

Reports are that Hillary Clinton is going to suspend her campaign after the polls close this evening in Montana and South Dakota.This Jeff Greenfield piece from this afternoon, looking back on the Clinton-Obama clash, declares that Hillary got caught in a time warp. I agree, but I would describe the time warp quite differently. To Greenfield, it has to do with convention fights: since 1984, the

He Had an Idea, An Awful Idea

2008-05-30T19:49:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to write something for Le Chapeau Haut--you know, the East African edition of that cyber-rag I usually write for--and I have a thought, that I can't use for the 'Chap', but need to get out of my system.I've had trouble knowing what to say about Obama v. Clinton, partly out of fear of giving offense some way, but probably more out of fear of being flat wrong. The real losers have been

Links for the day

2008-04-24T12:52:00.000-07:00

Rebecca Solnit, “Men Explain Things to Me.” I forwarded this to my wife. I’m debating if we should show it to my teenage daughter as a warning or if it would depress her too much. There is a guy we know who would not accept that water is wet if a woman was giving him the information.Rick Perlstein, “The Myths of McGovern.” Via Ezra Klein. Pertinent in light of yesterday’s discussion in TNR

Shades of 1968

2008-04-23T11:57:00.000-07:00

Three things I came across today while misusing my time and my employer's bandwidth:Paul Auster, "The Accidental Rebel" (NYT) -- Auster recalls his involvement in the 1968 Columbia University student strike, whose 40th anniversary is this week.Alexander Linklater's portrait of Christopher Hitchens (Prospect UK). A well-done and highly sympathetic profile of the professional contrarian. (Though

Texahio

2008-03-04T08:01:00.000-08:00

Ice and snow in Ohio today. Which campaign has superior traction in harsh winter conditions? Who are the hardier foul-weather voters, Feminazis for Clinton or Trustifarians for Obama? What does it mean, WHAT DOES IT MEAN???Another pendulum swing, this time in Clinton's direction. (So many have assumed that the inexorable lean in the last few days of a primary has been toward Obama; it doesn't

Music and Movements

2008-03-03T20:54:00.001-08:00

The Revealer linked to an article, entitled "One Nation Under Elvis," and the teaser copy hinted that it was one of those pieces arguing that country music is misunderstood, that it's really a voice for progressivism. I girded my loins for battle; a Steve Earle here or there may complicate the picture, but he doesn't really outweigh the scores of Toby Keiths and Lee Greenwoods singing on country

What Yglesias said

2008-02-22T06:49:00.000-08:00

Boo-ya. Shazam, even. Domestically, the Republican Party rests on the idea that government can only do harm, never good. Put them in office, put the anti-government party in control of the government, they are in a position to make that a self-fulfilling prophecy. Vandalism. Drowning the baby in the bathwater.On national security, the GOP runs on fear, so bad things happening (terrorism or

Who's a maverick and who ain't

2008-02-21T14:02:00.000-08:00

Last night the New York Times posted a story about John McCain’s relationship with lobbyists, notably a female telecommunications lobbyist who was seen in his company a lot circa 1999, the first time McCain ran for President. The above seems like a weak summary of a 3000-word story, but really, there’s not that much more substance to it. A number of observers have remarked how odd the story is

Take Some Prisoners

2008-02-12T09:15:00.000-08:00

A media diary for February 12.Listened to an NPR story on the drive to work this morning, about the Mitt Romney campaign and the impact it may have on the Mormon Church. The reporter, Howard Berkes, interviewed a couple of Mormon women in Virginia who were phone-canvassing for Romney and were surprised by the anti-Mormon sentiment they encountered, which they don’t often encounter in everyday

Fear of Flying, 2008

2008-02-04T14:19:00.000-08:00

Atrios calls our attention this morning to these twinned Washington Post opinion columns by novelists Michael Chabon and Erica Jong. It’s a tense time in Democratland, this Super Tuesday eve, and things may get a lot more tense right after Super Tuesday. Atrios is pleading with us not to fall into the trap, which Jong and Chabon fall into, of believing that those who

Con

2008-01-11T11:07:00.000-08:00

The advertised title of the lecture was “Faith-Based Initiatives: Role and Efficacy in a Civil Society.” That seemed interesting and unbiased enough to me, so I devoted a long lunch hour to walking across Duke campus and attending. It didn’t take long for me to start feeling like a sucker. Even before the speaker got to the heart of his topic, the names he dropped made me a little queasy.

New Hampshire Hangover

2008-01-09T09:57:00.000-08:00

I’m disoriented. I was getting used to the idea, excited even, that Barack Obama would be my presidential nominee. I was feeling comfortable with Hillary Clinton’s highest office being Senator from New York (not too shabby, right?). I was braced for a discussion of what Clinton would do from a hopeless position—would she lash out in a way that damaged Obama for the general election? Despite

Watch Your Step When Boarding

2008-01-07T09:58:00.000-08:00

The primary season is heating up—as in, the Democratic nominee may be decided in two days. It felt like the primaries would take forever, yet suddenly on one side (the only side that matters! please Lord) they may be over in a flash. And I might ought to say something about what has happened in Iowa and is about to happen in New Hampshire. But first, a brief aside. I am really

Off The Reservation

2007-12-21T07:49:00.000-08:00

In today's Washington Post, Eugene Robinson takes on Hillary's Bill problem: specifically, that Bill doesn't stay "on message" when he's campaigning on Hillary's behalf, and can't stop talking about himself in general. The implication is that Bill is a dubious asset as a campaigner and would be a unique problem if Hillary won the White House.Personally, I take for granted that First Gentleman

Media diary, December 19

2007-12-20T07:07:00.001-08:00

Because I was running late this morning, I was in the car to hear part of BBC World Service on public radio. The program is celebrating its 75th anniversary and has been rebroadcasting clips from its early days. Today a BBC producer commented on what she learned from combing the audio archives. During the Second World War, BBC broadcasts were important not just to the British people but to the

"A laundry bin full of jock straps at Shea"

2007-12-14T08:00:00.000-08:00

I’ve been meaning to finish a couple of posts on politics and media and other serious respectable topics, but here’s an easy post to write: reaction to the George Mitchell report on steroids in baseball. It bugs me a little bit, the increasingly undeniable evidence that a lot of top-flight players were juicing. Which makes me examine my assumptions: Why at this late date do I expect fine

Long Cool Woman

2007-11-28T14:01:00.000-08:00

What I learned about The Hollies in the last two days, while shirking my adult responsibilities:"Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress" is a staple of oldies radio, and over the years it has made an impression on me as a song with a really good sound, only partially counteracted by really stupid lyrics. Recently some friends and I have been brainstorming a list of songs of the genus "Good Sound,

Reorientation

2007-11-19T09:11:00.001-08:00

Butterflies & Wheels pointed me to this Comment Is Free post by Theo Hobson. A good shot by the theist side in the spitball match with Big Atheism ™ . I don’t want to really want to dwell on the spitball match, but the post includes a useful definition of prayer: … The believer does not pray in order to try to influence God's will. Instead, he's trying to influence his own will, to make it

"No Separation of Politics and Ethics"

2007-11-02T12:06:00.000-07:00

This is a great manifesto of religious progressivism by Tom Perriello, Democratic candidate for Congress in Virginia's Fifth District. It is worth noting a third group that I do not consider part of the movement – pundits who say values voters are a reason for Dems to run to the middle and quote the Bible more. This argument is morally and strategically bankrupt. My argument earlier this week was

On West Virginia

2007-10-02T10:24:00.000-07:00

[Unused grafs from a writing project] “Wild, Wonderful West Virginia”, the official travel bureau slogan reads. That’s been the state slogan for as long as I can remember, 35 years or so, so it must fit. West Virginia abounds in natural beauty, but it is truly a wild, gnarled beauty. The mountains that cover the state are not as majestic as the Rockies or even the Smoky Mountains of North

Made out of love, to help each other win

2007-09-26T07:56:00.000-07:00

I’ve been dying to repeat this somewhere. I was watching TV over the weekend—with a notebook and pen in my hand, because I was supposed to be writing something. I’ve watched a lot of VH1-Classic the last few weeks; it was recently added to our basic cable package, so it has novelty value, and I can really soak up some rock-music documentaries, or the odd re-broadcast of “The Wall” or “This Is

US Rep. Bob Etheridge (NC-02)

2007-09-10T13:52:00.000-07:00

Bob Etheridge, Congressman from the 2nd District of North Carolina, made Open Left's list of "Bush Dogs," Democratic reps who consistently and frustratingly vote with the White House on Iraq. I'm not in his district, but let me take a stab at writing an Etheridge profile. I welcome comments or even competing evaluations of Etheridge. Let Matt Stoller know if you have an Etheridge profile.From

Notes on spirituality and health

2007-09-06T14:46:00.000-07:00

I heard a talk today about spirituality and health, given by a clinical psychologist. The guy’s heart was in the right place, let me put it that way, and some people got into interesting discussions afterwards. So we’re groping toward a fruitful understanding of these issues and relationships. I got a handle on one of the things that sometimes bugs me in these discussions: There’s a

Misquoted in his Autobiography

2007-08-09T11:25:00.000-07:00

I just read the new Matthew Scully piece in The Atlantic debunking the myth of Michael Gerson. (That would be the dual myth that Gerson is a singularly brilliant speechwriter as well as a nice, selfless guy.) It's a guiltily pleasurable read. Whenever I am tempted to sneer at people who follow the gossip-column exploits of Britney or Lindsay, I try to remember that I enjoy reading gossip as

White Collar

2007-07-10T20:11:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, the former Democratic speaker of the N.C. House, Jim Black, got indicted for influence peddling. Jim Black is not quite a Tom Delay-level sleazeball, but he lived on the edge of campaign finance laws, and beyond the edge, for a long time, so the indictment was no surprise and richly deserved. Black's antics included having contributors write checks with the Payee line left

Katharine Lee Bates + Ray Charles

2007-07-10T20:00:00.000-07:00

The Scooter Libby thing early last week (Bush’s announcement that he was commuting Libby’s jail term) angered and depressed me—it didn’t really surprise me, but nonetheless it gnawed at me, like a lot of political news stories in the past four years. Part of what was galling was the timing of it: the week of Independence Day, the week when I make an effort to reacquaint myself with patriotism. On

Satisfied hound

2007-06-30T08:11:00.000-07:00

Crooked Timber's Belle Waring on Fred Thompson. Smarter and funnier than what I was trying to say.Why are people trying to convince me that Fred Thompson is sexy? A lock forthe Republican nomination, OK—I feel that since all the other candidates havesome truly fatal flaw, and since ol’Fred has been conveniently out of officeduring the late unpleasantness of the Bush II era he’ll get the

Nifong

2007-06-28T14:22:00.000-07:00

It's not so much that I feel sympathy for Mike Nifong, it's that I feel a lot of distaste for some of the people who are crowing at his downfall: For former Duke lacrosse coach, now "professional victim" Mike Pressler. For our governor Mike Easley, who piled on to Nifong after he saw which way the wind was blowing. For KC Johnson and other bloggers who have made a cottage industry out of

"the hits from coast to coast"

2007-06-22T12:21:00.000-07:00

I’m gonna meme myself – Here is a list of pop songs from 1982, the year I turned 18, and my memories of some of them. This is freshman and sophomore year of college for me. The list is of the “most requested songs,” whatever that means—on FM radio? I know I listened to a lot of The Police, a lot of Squeeze, a lot of Duran Duran during 1982, but they don’t appear anywhere on the list. Here are

Antioch

2007-06-21T14:22:00.000-07:00

Just a quickie post, of the genus "things I read online that I might want to refer to later."I saw somewhere that Antioch College in Ohio had suspended operations, but took little notice. I didn't know much about the school. Here Michael Goldfarb, former NPR correspondent and an Antioch graduate, wrote a NYT op-ed piece reflecting on the college's fate. Before the piece disappears into the

The Lip

2007-06-13T10:26:00.000-07:00

It's been a lousy year for me and reading books, so I've got to claim this one, even though it's a cheapie: Nice Guys Finish Last, by Leo Durocher as told to Ed Linn. It's a 1975 publication, apparently out of print. I came across it at a used book store in Chapel Hill.I had heard this was one of the better baseball memoirs, and I would agree. Durocher was a really vivid character, and he was

“It’s Not Just About Knocking Bitches Down”

2007-06-12T13:07:00.000-07:00

Prompted by my sister-in-law, a bunch of us packed up the kids Saturday night and headed over to historic Dorton Arena to enjoy the spectacle that is the Carolina Rollergirls. It made for a fun evening, and I was struck by the aesthetics and ethos of the event—struck well enough to want to sound off about it. The first thing to say is that Roller Derby Night is a festival of

That Guy

2007-05-31T12:40:00.000-07:00

Fred Thompson? An instant contender for the Republican presidential nomination? You have got to be kidding me.Let's not pretend he's being pushed for Prez because of his Senate tenure (which was lackluster) or his record as Watergate counsel (we're way, way past the time when anybody gets a boost from what he did in Watergate, especially if he's a Republican). Fred is a recognizable face from

"I understand the problem. In other words, the problem is understood by me."

2007-05-31T11:31:00.000-07:00

I really shouldn't bother linking Yglesias except on the rare occasion when I disagree with him... and it's mighty hard to argue against the proposition that the White House wants to be judged by its words and given a free pass on its deeds.The administration, from Dubya on down, has a misfiring neuron when it comes to the connection between words and action, or words and intention. In some part

Sunk in the Sand

2007-05-31T09:57:00.000-07:00

It’s been a mighty long time since I’ve reviewed a book in this space. That might be because it’s been a mighty long time since I’ve finished a book. I finally finished one that had been a Christmas present, Fiasco by Thomas Ricks. It’s about the Iraq invasion and occupation, especially from the point of view of the uniformed military. As the title suggests, Ricks catalogs the lapses of planning

A Monday post --- just because.

2007-05-14T07:31:00.000-07:00

Here is Charlie Pierce @ Altercation, saying something worth repeating. The presidential primary campaigns start too early, they are too crowded--you hear those complaints a lot--but here is another major reason why they are so unsatisfying right now:For me, the biggest problem I have with the ongoing presidential campaign is that it is a context in which the most serious issue arising from the

Look what Atrios got me mixed up with

2007-05-04T06:28:00.000-07:00

Please take my blog reader survey!

The Offline Life

2007-05-02T13:51:00.000-07:00

There's some really good advice in this article by Stephen Elliott.

Niceties

2007-05-02T09:05:00.000-07:00

Okay, not that anyone else cares, but I can't resist responding to Jonathan Chait's article in The New Republic about the Democratic netroots.Chait starts his piece with an account of the 2000 Bush-Gore Florida fiasco, and Markos Moulitsas's pointing to Florida '00 as a prime motivating experience for his entry into online activism. This is a not-unreasonable approach for Chait to take--Kos is

Gopnik >>> Leader >>> Amis

2007-04-17T10:45:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed this New Yorker review of the new Kingsley Amis biography.

Imus

2007-04-10T12:30:00.000-07:00

My father used to be an Imus listener back when my family lived in New Jersey, so I’m aware of him, though I was never a fan. Referring to “nappy-headed hos” should be a ticket to the unemployment line and permanent Media Untouchable status, in my opinion. What I find most interesting is the fact that people like Howard Fineman and Tom Oliphant—people with standing in the political punditocracy

Thanks, Great Britain

2007-04-08T18:36:00.001-07:00

For keeping the United States out of war with Iran, despite our government's wishes.

"it's the rhetoric, stupid"

2007-04-06T13:59:00.000-07:00

At TPM Café Michael Berube takes up the subject of Democrats and their supposed hostility to religious faith. He discusses the electoral prospects of a generic atheist candidate for POTUS, which polls show are not good. Citing Richard Rorty, he discusses the asymmetrical use of religion as a “conversation-stopper” in political discourse. He acknowledges that snarky liberal bloggers are

Gator Love

2007-04-06T13:45:00.001-07:00

Remedial NCAA basketball blogging—I would be remiss not to call attention to the fact that my bracket earned first place in all three of the pools I entered, including the illustrious Lawyers Guns & Money challenge. I raked in $41.25 from my wife’s office pool (how it came out to this amount, I have no idea), a delicious complimentary breakfast here at my office, and the jealousy if not

FOD (Friends of Darth)

2007-03-12T14:15:00.000-07:00

Here was something sort of creepy-funny: in his L.A. Times column over the weekend, Jonathan Chait passes on a quote about the GOP presidential sweepstakes."THIS IS NOT Luke Skywalker here," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), discussing his friend and Senate colleague John McCain's second run for the presidency. "This is a totally different campaign."Graham was looking for a way to reassure his

Eating Their Own

2007-03-08T12:33:00.000-08:00

There's a growing controversy this week over a rash of firings of U.S. attorneys around the country. The common thread seems to be that these prosecutors were fired for building cases against GOP politicians, or in a couple of instances, not pursuing cases against Democratic politicians.The substantive thing that disturbs me the most is that these actions were not illegal--like the late great

Fitzmas -- Libby guilty on four counts

2007-03-06T09:50:00.000-08:00

Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone. I guess this was published a couple of weeks ago; the Libby verdict just came in today.In a way, the Beltway's tawdry interest in the "Inside Baseball" bullshitemanating from the Libby trial perfectly mirrored the Democrats' half-seriousattempts to pass an anti-war resolution. For the portrait of both the Bushadministration and the press corps that is emerging from

Trinity UCC

2007-03-02T06:21:00.000-08:00

Via Atrios, I see Sean Hannity did a segment that tried to paint Barack Obama's church, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, as "scary" and "like a cult." The supposedly "scary" part is that Trinity UCC promotes "The Black Value System", a mission statement that outlines a vision of black excellence, integrity, and social justice.Read the BVS for yourself and see how militant or separatist

The Muskogee Manifesto and much much more

2007-02-28T18:41:00.000-08:00

This American Prospect article was published just after the Dixie Chicks' Grammy sweep two weeks ago. The article traces the political history of the country music business: Nashville was New Deal populist before becoming Republican, and a key turning point was the release of Merle Haggard's "Okie from Muskogee." Haggard himself intended the song as a bit of a goof, but its popularity revealed,

Happy Mardi Gras

2007-02-20T06:00:00.000-08:00

A friend just linked me to this: ParadeCam, St. Charles Avenue.I was in New Orleans for Mardi Gras once. I was 22. Huge crowds. A party, someone's house, some friend of a friend. Balcony perch, overlooking a gay parade down Bourbon Street. Leather queens. Should have anticipated this scene, but hadn't. Me yelling at a guy because I didn't like the way he looked at me. Me = 22-year-old

Uh oh, somebody's off message

2007-02-15T06:44:00.000-08:00

The Spirit of Radio

2007-02-12T12:30:00.000-08:00

WNEW, broadcasting from New York City at 102.7 on the FM dial, was in my life starting in 1979, the year I turned 15, a ripe age for first love, and for a couple of years after that. Anglo-American rock music was important to me when I was a teenager; many of you can say the same. Lonely and awkward, parents don’t understand me, sexual longing, wish to be cool; verse, chorus, bridge, chorus,

Critics of Religion

2007-02-12T10:00:00.000-08:00

Atrios made a post Saturday, inspired by the Marcotte-McEwan controversy, where he lays out his views on commenting about religion. It’s a thoughtful statement that I respect and largely agree with. He starts in a funny place, though: To me, one of the biggest barriers to having any kind of honest discussion about religion generally and religion in politics specifically has been in the

One more on the Edwards bloggers

2007-02-09T13:37:00.000-08:00

Well, Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan still have their jobs, which is good. They had to humble themselves a little, but in a way it’s nice to see progressives using the “non-apology apology” that right-wingers so often turn to. Via Ezra Klein, I see this piece at politico.com quoting a couple of religious Democratic “leaders” (neither of whom I’ve heard of before) who feel Edwards

Myers: visionary genius. But Briggs? No-talent hack.

2007-02-08T13:46:00.000-08:00

I went on a staff retreat (so-called, but training class would describe it better) this week built on the Myers-Briggs inventory. We all filled the thing out, got our results, and discussed the various types, their implications, their interactions. While some of my co-workers seem to find Myers-Briggs to be a key to self-understanding, I’m skeptical. To tell the truth I was a little

Edwards campaign bloggers

2007-02-07T15:09:00.000-08:00

Man, I hope this isn’t true. I’ve been reading Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon since she arrived there. I have occasionally been annoyed by Amanda's posts about religion. But man, it never dawned on me that it was the slightest bit relevant to her employment with the Edwards campaign. She seems to be hard-working, adept at blogging, down with the Edwards agenda, etc. (The Edwards agenda includes

"Constitutionally incapable"

2007-02-07T11:05:00.000-08:00

Another Rick Perlstein gem in the New Republic. Hat tip to Yglesias.Perlstein is praising the blogosphere for doing a better job than the establishment press in a couple of recent instances. What Firedoglake is doing with its wall-to-wall blogging of the Scooter Libby trial is really quite remarkable. "We've been beating them," Wheeler notes of The Last Hurrah's coverage of the CIA leak scandal

Wolfe

2007-02-02T11:40:00.000-08:00

I wanted to blog briefly about a talk I just heard by Alan Wolfe, whom I admire and have commented about in this space a time or two. His title today was "Who's Afraid of American Religion?" Wolfe began by remarking on the recent run of new books that are critical if not hostile toward American religion: the Richard Dawkins school of wanting to overthrow religion per se; the David Kuo / Damon

"these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand"

2007-01-25T14:03:00.000-08:00

Whew -- tired today, and I know exactly why: I got caught up in watching All the President's Men on TV last night and stayed up later than I should've.This movie is an old favorite of mine, but I think last night marked the first time I've watched it since the revelation of the identity of Deep Throat. Not that verisimilitude is the best yardstick, but Hal Holbrook's performance actually holds

The Sin of Being Right; The Joy of Blogscenity

2007-01-18T11:36:00.000-08:00

Radar Online must have done something right, because they sure irritated some people with this article, comparing the professional fortunes of pundits who advocated the Iraq invasion in 2003, with those of pundits who opposed it. The conclusion was that the hawkish ones, who have been proved so abundantly wrong, are still higher and getting higher still on the political pundit food chain than

The Mystery of Dumb Smart Guys

2007-01-05T12:14:00.000-08:00

Malcolm Gladwell, "Open Secrets," The New Yorker:The national-security expert Gregory Treverton has famously made a distinction between puzzles and mysteries. Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts are a puzzle. We can’t find him because we don’t have enough information. The key to the puzzle will probably come from someone close to bin Laden, and until we can find that source bin Laden will remain at

Doug Feith is still the heavyweight champ, though

2007-01-02T14:35:00.000-08:00

Via Ezra Klein we discover Jane Galt calling Daniel Dennett a contender for the title of “stupidest smart person in the world.” Dennett is comparing the need to eradicate religion from modern life, with public health campaigns against tobacco. Ms. Galt, shall we say, has problems with his argument.The Dennett tangent, though, pointed me to Edge.org, a site I had forgotten about, which does this