Listening to Cheney and Edwards bicker over tax cuts, I think back and wonder what happened to the “ownership society” theme that Bush rolled out at the GOP convention. It seems like ages ago, it’s so far dropped off the radar. Oh, it may pop up again in the next presidential debate, when a newly […]
Is it just me or is the biggest impression we’re getting from this debate, even ten minutes into it, is that Dick Cheney’s running everything and that Bush is just a proxy?
As a side note, the GOP talking point this week has been that since elections worked in El Salvador, they will work in Afghanistan […]
“One must distinguish between naïve and deliberate Camp. Pure Camp is always naive. Camp which knows itself to be Camp (”camping”) is usually less satisfying.” - Susan Sontag, Notes on Camp.
Can one even distinguish - in the age in which video has collapsed cinematic and televisual history into an ever-accessible archive of style and genre […]
I thought the nadir of Lee Smith’s contributions at Slate was his article on multilateralism that thoroughly confused the Iraq war with interventions in international terrorism and seemed unaware that many critics had different stances on the need for multilateralism depending on which issue you’re talking about.
Only today, he attacks the academy for impeding […]
This is being picked up extensively elsewhere, but the IgNobel Award winner list is pretty hilarious. Chris Brooke takes a look at the winner for Medicine (”The Effect of Country Music on Suicide”) and surveys the social scientific literature on the depressive effects of country music. Talk about Media Effects research gone wrong. Yikes. At […]
While Interpol’s new album seems to be garnering the attention this week, I happened to pick up an album that blows it away: Fade Back In, by the Contrast. They’re not exactly a retro-postpunk band, though at times their songs (like the aptly titled “Functional Punk Pop Song”) have the taut drive of Franz Ferdinand […]
My favorite line from last night, from Bush:
You can’t change the dynamics on the ground if you’ve criticized the brave leader of Iraq. One of his campaign people alleged that Prime Minister Allawi was like a puppet. That’s no way to treat somebody who’s courageous and brave, that is trying to lead his country forward.
The […]
Josh Marshall, like many of the TV pundits I’ve seen so far tonight, is being way too kind: “My point isn’t that Kerry clobbered the president or anything. But for 90 minutes, Kerry held the initiative…”
Kerry clobbered Bush tonight. I’m not just saying that because I’m a Democrat or a liberal or Bush-hater. Throughout the […]