January 2012
16 posts
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To usher in the New Year, Bogaards has put out a Top 100 Hierarchy of Book Publishing, which opens with “Brand-name authors (still),” moves through “Laura Miller when she is cranky” to “Laura Miller when she is not cranky,” and ends with “you.” Enjoy.
SOTU 2012: On Fairness
Not that you should care of my thoughts, but I thought it was a fine, nicely delivered speech. It reminded me of why the right would always remain upset with Obama: he’s a pragmatic centrist who likes to talk about fairness. It’s disarming to both those who wish for a society based on absolute equality, and those who think equality means less freedom to live at the expense of others....
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Results of the Egyptian Parliamentary Elections
The political science blog, the Monkey Cage, has a helpful entry on the results of the Egyptian parliamentary elections. Someone should do a study about why liberal-secular parties don’t join forces while (moderate) Muslim parties do.
pianoimpro:
Roman Prelude - for Piano - Bernard...
“I feel confident that sooner rather than later, the American people will come to...”
– Andrew Sullivan’s latest, a couple paragraphs after he calls liberals “deluded.”
Yet I remain less interested in us finishing what we started, and more interested in Obama beginning what he has yet to start. Or better, still less interested. From the Nation, two years ago:
Yet a year into the...
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Iran, U.S. need a crisis exit ramp →
garysick:
At the link is my latest take on the crisis between the United States and Iran and what could be done to alleviate it. It is on the CNN Opinion page. It concludes:
U.S. policy has been one of pressure leading to negotiations. Iran has also pursued a dual-track policy of threats combined with offers of negotiation. These policies have resulted in the prospect of a war that would be...
“Hillary Clinton is 64 years old, with a Calvinist work ethic, the stamina of an...”
– Just the Ticket - NYTimes.com
Touche.
“The crowd responded with gasps and a roar as Ms. Giffords, wearing a vibrant red...”
– In Tucson, a Year After the Shooting of Gabrielle Giffords - NYTimes.com
Goose bumps indeed.
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Obama is Right on Iran (for now)
In a recent column posted on Foreign Affairs’s website, former State Department policy adviser, Suzanne Maloney, offers the following assessment of the Obama administration’s sanctions on Iran’s financial and oil industries:
What needs to be addressed is the disturbing reality that the Obama administration’s approach offers no viable endgame for dealing with Iran’s...
“ایشان نقش همسری و مادری را، فوق العاده مهم توصیف و خاطرنشان کردند: همسر خوب می...”
– اشتغال زن نبايد مسئولیت همسری و مادری را تحت الشعاع قرار دهد و مسئله محرم و نامحرم بايد بهخوبی رعایت شود
For Iranian readers of this blog.
Rick Santorum, eat your heart out! This is an excerpt from a speech given by Ali Khamenei (the Supreme Dictator of Iran) on the subject of women and the...
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A Scandal in Belgravia
If you haven’t seen BBC One’s modern adaptation of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock, I pity you. You are missing out on healthy escapist fun. I’ve been a big fan since the first series aired last year, but I’ve become positively enamored after watching the first episode of the second series, ‘A Scandal in Belgravia’, starring Lara Pulver as...
“We tune out the voices of the victims and belittle their complaints about the...”
– The Forgotten Wages of War - NYTimes.com
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Best of 2011
Since I despise New Year’s Eve parties, I tend to spend the hours leading up to midnight remembering what I did and didn’t like about the previous 365 days. Here’s a short list of what I fancied in books, music, and films:
Best contemporary fiction: The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
Best old/classic fiction: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
Best contemporary...
December 2011
22 posts
Robert Reich: My Political Prediction for 2012:... →
robertreich:
My political prediction for 2012 (based on absolutely no inside information): Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden swap places. Biden becomes Secretary of State — a position he’s apparently coveted for years. And Hillary Clinton, Vice President.
So the Democratic ticket for 2012 is Obama-Clinton.
Why…
I said so a few months ago, but I’m glad Reich agrees. I would only add...
Top Ten Myths about the Arab Spring of 2011 |... →
A very good list to have handy should you encounter zealots on either side.
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“Most notably, Philip Glass’s “Satyagraha,” a monumental minimalist opera evoking...”
– Culture Desk: Outside the Machine: The Best Classical Performances of 2011
Alex Ross demonstrating, yet again, why he is the best at what he does. I’ve often wondered about the key absurdity relayed here: that classical music is the domain of the elite. It’s chief flaw, in the eyes of...
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W. W. Norton: Do the Classics Have a Future? →
wwnorton:
…take, for example, the common statement “The ancient Athenians invented democracy.” Put like that, it is simply not true. As far as we know, no ancient Greek ever said so; and anyway democracy isn’t something that is “invented” like a piston engine. Our word “democracy” derives from the Greek,…
for JBJ.
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“So far, most of the eulogies of Christopher have come from men, and there’s a...”
– Regarding Christopher | The Nation
I’m putting off writing about Hitchens until such time that I can write about him soberly, but this is one of the better remembrances of him that I’ve read.
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Access to Emergency Contraception for Adolescents
It is with a great deal of pride that I turn your attention to my hard working wife’s study featured in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). She and her crack research team called every major pharmacy (943 in all) in four major US cities (Nashville, TN; Philadelphia, PA; Cleveland, OH; Austin, TX; and Portland, OR) posing as adolescents who recently had...
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Some of the best, most memorable moments of our existence occur in total solitude, when sensory reception of the physical world yields to deeply-felt imagination of a contented self, no less real, no less alive.
Conrad may have had it right: “We live as we dream, alone.”
“Fresh questions about the extent of James Murdoch’s knowledge of the...”
– James Murdoch: I didn’t read crucial phone-hacking email | Media | The Guardian
Gotcha, Murdoch! Now let’s get your daddy in the room again.
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“In terms of its content, Teach for America is completely different from Goldman...”
– William Deresiewicz
Everything he writes is a must read. We need to be truly innovative and courageous to do that things we want to do and create the changes that need to happen in this world. We often believe we must go down a path that is much, much too narrow, but ultimately, we can decide what...
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“The banks and the rating agencies have become the dictators of the West. Like...”
– Robert Fisk (via azspot)
This is really an insult to those who endured life under Mubarak and Ben Ali. I’m not least bit moved by this moronic analogy. Until we acknowledge the complicity of ordinary people in the economic woes of this country we will continue building imaginary walls between...
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“Because we pay so little attention to the actual scale of destruction,...”
– How Will We Remember Operation Iraqi Freedom? By John Tirman
Inside McKinsey - FT.com →
The plastic surgeons of capitalism.
“The CIA has been able to stifle serious discussion of its highly anomalous...”
– Blair Addresses the CIA, Drones, and Pakistan—By Scott Horton (Harper’s Magazine)
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“And fourth, Holbrooke lived the ultimate life of service. After joining the...”
– Richard Holbrooke’s Last Mission in Afghanistan by David Rohde
I had the opportunity to talk with Holbrook one-on-one twice while he was profesor-at-large at Brown. I was always impressed and surprised by his generosity given the reputation he had for egotism and snobbery. He clearly enjoyed...
“Islamic protesters in Tunisia disrupted classes at the University of Manouba on...”
– Islamic Protesters Attack University in Tunisia - The Global Ticker - The Chronicle of Higher Education
Disturbing similarities with Iran ca. 1979-80.
November 2011
14 posts
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“Remember, the public has long been ahead of the media in understanding that news...”
– John Pilger (via azspot)
This is really irritating, not because of the sentiment and point Pilger wishes to make - which is incredibly important to make - but because of the inaccurate and hyperbolic way in which he makes it. The Johns Hopkins University epidemiological survey he refers to is the...
Top 10 Most Censored Stories of 2011 →
anti-propaganda:
#10 Statistical Games with the Unemployment Rate. At Information Clearing House, Greg Hunter showed that instead of 9%, the real unemployment rate is over 22%. #9 Chemtrails. Atmospheric Geoengineering: Weather Manipulation, Contrails and Chemtrails, July 10, 2010. #8 The Truth on Nuclear Power. The Union of Concerned Scientists published a report describing 14 near-miss...
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“In 2006, three months after he agreed to pay $135 million, a record at the time,...”
– Estée Lauder Heir’s Tax Strategies Typify Advantages for Wealthy - NYTimes.com
Say hi to the top 0.000258 percent!
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“Yet the Occupy movement could do worse than to learn from the pipeline protest....”
– Bill McKibben, Keystone XL, and Barack Obama : The New Yorker
Absolutely right. It’s been a privilege to be part of this protest movement against the Keystone XL Pipeline, even though there’s much more work to be done. OWS must absolutely learn from the tactics employed by...
“There are contexts in which going to the grocery is a small act of cultural...”
– Leon Wieseltier: Outcome And Experience | The New Republic
I’m in full agreement with Wieseltier for a change.
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From 'Occupation' to 'Targeted Sanctions'
I’ve identified with the demands of the Occupy Wall St. Movement (yes, loons out there, there are clearly-articulated, broadly-agreed-upon sets of demands), as have millions of people across the globe. But the time has come to shift strategies and elevate the protests to a higher register.
The merchants of politics on both the right and the left - with their respective mouthpieces in the...
“Mitt was having a hard time figuring out which side to pick in two statewide...”
– Michael B. Keegan: Tuesday’s Biggest Loser: The New, New Mitt Romney
Side-effects of a life spent worshiping at the altar of careerism.
Keystone XL Pipeline: State Department Expected To... →
Yes.
Eric Foner on the Evolution of Liberalism |... →
The historian chooses five books illustrating how concepts of American liberalism have changed over the past 50 years, and tells us about the tension that lies at the heart of liberalism today.