Happy New Year, n’est-ce pas? Or, perhaps more appropriately, WTF? I’m getting too old for this shit, and I didn’t sign up for it in the first place. In the old days, like December 31, 2019, one of the harshest, and truest, charges against Vladimir Putin is that he carried out the assassination of people…
Author: Alan Vanneman
Is Bret Stephens too smart for his own good?
Poor Bret Stephens. He went into town, just tryin’ to do right, and look what happened to him! Well, don’t let no one tell you them dogs won’t bite, n’est-ce pas?1 A couple of days ago—well, in dog time—Bret wrote a column “The Secrets of Jewish Genius”, that, in its original form cited a “study”…
Qassem Soleimani didn’t kill 600 American soldiers in Iraq; George Bush did
As “conservatives” rally to explain why murdering a high-ranking official of another country is a good thing, one of the most potent—or at least most frequently repeated—arguments is that Iranian General Qassem Soleimani was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers in Iraq. The Washington Post tells us of “Soleimani’s legacy: The gruesome,…
Old Man War Machine, he jes’ keep rollin’ along
(Editor’s Note: I wrote this piece to describe the military intellectual complex’s endless search for a new Cold War. But Donald Trump seems to be looking for a hot one.) The Washington Post’s recent release of the “Afghanistan Papers”, which reported at least a significant portion of the near-infinite number of lies told to justify…
How to enjoy “The Rise of Skywalker”: They can’t disappoint your expectations if you don’t have any!
That’s right. I enjoyed The Rise of Skywalker to a reasonable extent because I had bailed on the “saga” decades ago and never bothered to catch up. I didn’t know or care about any of the characters, so I wasn’t disappointed that it didn’t make sense. Sure, I had a lot of questions, but I…
Aaron Diehl Trio—“Round Midnight”
Aaron Diehl with David Won, bass, and Quincy Davis, drums, live at the Players Club, New York City, 2010. Posted by Aaron Diehl
Fred Kaplan says it’s time to worry about war with North Korea “again”. Why?
Why indeed? But it’s not just Fred, though I think Freddie was first off the mark with “It’s time to worry about war with North Korea again.” (Dec, 17), but his shrill concerns have been ably amplified by none other than the totally unbiased New York Times “U.S. Braces for Major North Korean Weapons Test…
Roman Viazovskiy—“Round Midnight”
Arranged for guitar by Roland Dyens. Available on the CD “Zeitenwanderer“. Posted by TheUkrtv
Who the HELL does Robert Gottlieb think he is?
Robert Gottlieb is a serious high muckety-muck in the New York literary scene, formerly editor in chief, no less, of, successively, Simon & Schuster, Alfred A. Knopf, and the New Yorker. So why is he pissing on poor old Booth Tarkington? In fact, much of Bob’s take on Booth over at the New Yorker, “The…
“Respectable” Republican congressfolk are full of it, Ramesh Ponnuru thoughtfully observes
I won’t count the ways I’ve abused “thoughtful” right-winger Ramesh Ponnoru, because if I did I’d be up all night, but today I come to praise Ramesh, not to bury him. Ramesh has generally been a “on the one hand, on the other” guy when it comes to be the Trump impeachment, but it appears…