By way of introduction: I typed and retyped roughly 50 words in columns from the beginning of several texts. I then proceded to read across the columns and typed them again, trusting the words only. They showed me writers who were fed up with Reality. This was the way I saw it long ago: “A […]

his review of “Dog Days,” the new novel by Ana Marie Cox: Ana Marie Cox made her name writing a political blog, Wonkette.com. I’ve never seen it. As far as I can tell, no one has. Admitting reading political blogs is like admitting watching daytime TV. Christopher Buckley writes in

How about this tasty morsel? We’re dumbfounded.

rhyme and reason made good sense to us. That’s why we posted it. This morning’s New York Times offers an endorsement with its lead editorial, Though it lacks Leon Freilich’s meter, the editorial gives more than enough reason to reject Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court —

Edward Allen has. He’s four years old. James Moore, who’s considerably older, has been Clayton Patterson, a Lower East Side activist friend of ours with a long history of arrests, tells us “being targeted is scary. I’m not sure people understand this.” That’s experience talking, and of course they don’t. On Nov. 2, 2004,

Since the judge was sought to distance himself from conservative political opinions he once held (LA Times) and — Leon Freilich *Der Gropenfuhrer either wasn’t listening or didn’t believe Alito when he professsed that no one is “above the law.” For two decades Der Grope has been riding around on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle “even though […]

Our old friend Mugs McGuiness did us another one of his many favors. When he heard about our ‘puter meltdown he sent over a box of used books, figuring that would cheer us up. Which it did. The man has fine taste in litrichur. We picked out of the box a slim Penguin paperback with […]

Gareth Porter isn’t fooled by the American ‘ganda machine. While we were out — thanks to our Dell laptop meltdown — he rang in the New Year for the “US Military Still Runs With Dreaded Wolf Brigade,” just as the Porter — historian, national security policy analyst and author of a new book about the […]

Start the year with a

Twelve months later … Oliphant’s New Year cartoon still applies.

“I just read the incredible “And I very much appreciate Doug Ireland’s postscript comments in previously estimated, depending on how events evolve, the potential ranges from 500,000 to 1.8 million people through death or exile. This could be avoided, but if it happens, should those who caused the civil war and who armed its participants […]

“Fisk scolds U.S. journalists” is the way “Telling it like it isn’t,” an op-ed tongue-lashing in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times (which was fairly mild for Fisk). Now have a look at some excerpts from his book, [W]ho are those people? In the taboo-ridden world of Western journalism, every effort continues to be made not only […]

There’s much to be said about John Gray’s essay, “Imperial Grunts” and Michael Mandelbaum’s This left us dumbfounded because, as School Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics and the author of “Liberalism (Concepts in Social Thought),” “Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals,” “Heresies.”) William Osborne, who summed up his […]

As a follow-up to Testimony at Nuremberg, April 15, 1946 2) “You know, the Germans say you have a ‘fingertip feel’ — Fingerspitzengefühl — you know how a place smells, how it feels. A strategist who doesn’t have that innate sense about the area he’s working is going to get us in trouble.” — Zalmay […]

We don’t know why we were targeted. cowboy-artist homilies turned up, unbidden, in our e-mail inbox. Maybe it’s just a Hallmark time of year. Love the rocks (y’ gotta

Byron Calame, the public editor of The New York Times, says his interest was piqued. His column on Sunday was headlined We didn’t send him our Dec. 3 item ArtsJournal, or via a link on CREDIT WHERE DUE, AND BONES TO PICK. Calame said nothing, however, about what piqued our interest most: 100 Notable Books […]