How can Nicholas Kristof be so DUMB? Here’s how: “Time To Get Religion,” his column this morning, in which he offers the Democrats four suggestions for future success: • Don’t be afraid of religion.• Pick battles of substance, not symbolism. • Accept that today, gun control is a nonstarter.• Hold your nose and work with […]
OF MORONS AND MORAL VALUES
The dust from the election of the chief ignoramus has not settled. May it never. Others are saying that, too. Straight Upper Joan Daniels, a regular reader, writes: I have come to the conclusion that the “majority” of Americans are simply morons and nothing now will ever convince me otherwise. I’m amazed by the people […]
THE POETRY OF POLITICS
“Democrats face this terrible arithmetic in the Electoral College where if they don’t carry any of the 11 Southern states [of the Old Confederacy] they need to win 70% of everything else,” says Merle Black, an expert on Southern politics at Emory University.BLESSED BE THE TRUE BELIEVERS A positive approach is neededIn these days of […]
WORDS OF WARNING
Annie J. writes a blog called anniej’s livejournal, which was brought to my attention by a friend. Subtitled “the moon & antarctica,” it lives on a popular online publishing site. Annie J.’s journal is a pop culture fandom diary about, among other things, “porn, werewolves, wizards, gay boys fucking, and the hotness of David Thewlis” […]
THE NEW AMERICA: NO-GO ZONES FOR GAYS?
Now that 11 states have voted by overwhelming margins for amendments to their state consitutions to ban gay marriage — Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Montana, Utah, Ohio, Michigan and Oregon — lending huge support to seven other states that already define marriage as exclusively heterosexual, will we soon be seeing “no-go zones” […]
INFINITE NONSENSE
A majority of American voters stuck its head up its ass yesterday and, by 58,154,413 to 54,616,818 (with 99 percent of all votes in), proved daredevil columnist Jimmy Breslin wrong, to say nothing of daredevil pollster John Zogby. Unless things change in Ohio, when the final final count is tallied, or some other miracle occurs, […]
GONE VOTIN’
The bookies are still giving shorter odds on Bush, which means bettors continue to favor the Ignoramus. But Kerry backers are closing the gap. There may be evidence that crowd wisdom under the right circumstances is smarter than the smartest, best-informed expert. But every time a long shot wins at the racetrack, there’s evidence to […]
ZOGBY JUMPS
It’s two-hour-old news by now, but here it is anyway: John Kerry will be the next president of the United States, according to daredevil pollster John Zogby. He had it right the last time when everybody else had it wrong, and now he predicts Kerry will beat Bush in the Electoral College, 311 to 213 […]
JOKING MATTERS
Voting was a snap in my election district. So I’m back earlier than I expected, and happy to see a joke called “The Balloonist” about Republicans and Democrats, which is making the email rounds. It’s being attributed to Garrison Keillor. The attribution could well be apocryphal. (Remember Kurt Vonnegut’s bogus commencement address at MIT a few years ago? Here’s the […]
BACK ON DEADLINE
Overnight reviews are back, in case you hadn’t noticed, at The New York Times. The first one in years — an opera review by Anthony Tommasini, of “Haroun and the Sea of Stories” — appeared this morning in the Metro section on page B2. (Online it’s listed in the Arts section.) Overnight notices used to […]
ELECTION ODDS
Please note: The odds that bookmakers are giving on the presidential election are subject to change. Some, as given here on Sunday, already have changed (though not by much). These are the latest betting lines.
MORE FROM CENSOR CENTRAL
Has free speech in America come to this? The 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate cannot publish her memoirs in this country because of a U.S. trade embargo regulation “intended to punish repressive governments such as the regime in Tehran that once sent her to jail,” The Wall Street Journal reports this morning. The irony is […]
THE ROAD FROM ABU GHRAIB TO ELECTION DAY
When it comes to the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, the editorial page of The New York Times has been especially strong in condemning the White House and the Pentagon. My take was that “nobody has said it better.” Well, maybe somebody has: Intel Dump blogger Phillip Carter. Carter writes in a review of Seymour Hersh’s […]
OK, IT’S HALLOWEEN
Now for the nine scariest Election 2004 Costumes from the “Do-It-Yourself Guide” by Dan Savage, David Schmader and John E. Hollingsworth.
BIN LADEN SPEAKS
Referring to the president, Mr. bin Laden said: “It appeared to him that a little girl’s talk about her goat and its butting was more important than the planes and their butting of the skyscrapers. That gave us three times the required time to carry out the operations, thank God.” — NY Times, 30 Oct […]
MATT HABER’S HEADS-UP
Everybody loves Wonkette — and for good reason: She gives good head. In other words, she’s got brains (and a great sense of humor). But Matt Haber at Low Culture belongs right there with her, maybe ahead of her. Consider the item he posted the other day, “conspiracy-a-ga-ga”, taking the New York Post’s Page Six […]
SHORT MEMORIES
A friend writes: “News readers (we’re talking about the “talking heads”) have short memories for much that matters. As Brett Wagner, president of the California Center for Strategic Studies and a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, noted a year ago in a USA Today article (on Oct. 6, 2003): [T]he war fighters were […]