Monatsarchive: Juli 2016

Unabashed Attempt at Cooptation

„Our country needs your ideas, energy, and passion.“ When I heard this I was reminded of the ROTC guys I debated at the U. of Michigan in the fall of 1978. I’d been bicycling in Europe the previous couple summers … Weiterlesen

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Katy Perry

Watching Katy Perry on stage in Philadelphia endorsing Hillary Clinton reminds me of ski trips to Tahoe and watching Family Guy at night for want of anything better to do at the motel. Stewie was a big fan of Katy … Weiterlesen

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Joe Biden for Hillary Clinton

Could only listen to the first couple lines out of Biden tonight. Thought of Biden staffer Jeff Connaughton’s sections in George Packer’s The Unwinding and Connaughton’s authoring The Payoff: Why Wall Street Always Wins. Philadelphia sees a string of servants to … Weiterlesen

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On Trees and Their Absence

Roper: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law! More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? Roper: I’d cut down every law in England to do that! More: … Weiterlesen

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When Darkness Comes

In my hometown of Philadelphia an aged Paul Simon’s uninspired rendition of Bridge Over Troubled Water brings memories of 1972. I listened to Simon and Garfunkel a lot in the early 70s, and sang their songs when bicycling through New England … Weiterlesen

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We are the champions, USA! USA!

Is there something hallucinatory about Melania Trump entering and exiting the stage to the sound of a song written by a gay Parsi or is this just me? More hallucinatory than just Melania Trump, I mean. Where is Hunter Thompson? … Weiterlesen

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The French are hated for their freedoms

The Guardian: France is historically seen as standard bearer of western secular liberalism and has been singled out by Isis as a key target… Islamic extremists may see the US as a source of moral decadence and economic exploitation, but … Weiterlesen

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Thought Crime

BBC: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has suggested testing all US Muslims to see if they believe in Sharia law, and deporting those who do.… Mr Gingrich, who was in the frame as Mr Trump’s potential running mate before Indiana … Weiterlesen

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A fish rots from the head

Adrien and I would often argue about whether dictators were products of their societies or whether the inverse was true and societies were shaped by the trauma and repression of dictatorship. In Iraq I saw the kidnapping epidemic that swept … Weiterlesen

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The greatest generation and the last good war

We Americans have the dangerous tendency in our international thinking to take a holier-than-thou attitude toward other nations. We consider ourselves to be more noble and decent than other peoples, and consequently in a better position to decide what is … Weiterlesen

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The most progressive platform in the history of the Democratic Party

The BBC reports that Bernie Sanders has endorsed Hillary Clinton, saying „there was a significant coming together between the two campaigns and we produced, by far, the most progressive platform in the history of the Democratic Party.“ I find this … Weiterlesen

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UK foreign secretary: US decision on Iraqi army led to rise of Isis

Today’s Guardian: Maybe it was too great an ambition to dismantle quite a sophisticated country with a long-established civilisation, traditions and culture of its own, and to recreate a mid-Atlantic construct of what government should look like, often going against … Weiterlesen

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