Why Liberalism Is in Trouble. By David Harsanyi.

Why Liberalism Is in Trouble. By David Harsanyi. Real Clear Politics, May 23, 2013.

Bitch. By Meredith Brooks.

Bitch. By Meredith Brooks. Video. Capitol Records, 1997. emimusic, April 23, 2010. YouTube.

Jihad In London.

“You and your children will be next”: Islamic fanatics wielding meat cleavers butcher and try to behead a British soldier, taking their war on the West to a new level of horror. By Arthur Martin et al. Daily Mail, May 22, 2013.

Open Jihad in South London. By Monica Crowley. Monicamemo.com, May 23, 2013.

Terror in London and Boston shows our world has changed. By Mike Lupica. New York Daily News, May 23, 2013.

Chris Hayes: London Muslim Butchers “Are Just Murderers” And Not Terrorists. Video. Real Clear Politics, May 23, 2013.

London Machete-Wielding Attacker: “You Will Never Be Safe.” Video. Real Clear World, May 23, 2013. On YouTube here, here, and here. ITV.




To the Slaughter. By Mark Steyn. National Review Online, May 24, 2013.

Islam’s Parallel Emirate in the U.K. By Andrew C. McCarthy. National Review Online, May 25, 2013.

Woolwich and Britain’s Approaching Show-down. By David Pryce-Jones. National Review Online, May 24, 2013.

Blood on the Streets of Woolwich. By Anthony Lane. The New Yorker, May 23, 2013.

Britain Has Been In Denial About the Islamist Threat. By Douglas Murray. Wall Street Journal, May 23, 2013.

Woolwich was a case study in the banality– and the idiocy – of evil. By Fraser Nelson. The Telegraph, May 23, 2013.

Was the London killing of a British soldier “terrorism”? By Glenn Greenwald. The Guardian, May 23, 2013.

A New Generation of Political Terrorists. By Saadia Faruqi. Tikkun Daily, May 23, 2013.

Moral illiterates weigh in on Woolwich. By Terry Glavin. Ottawa Citizen, May 24, 2013.

Boko Haram’s Spirit Comes to London. By Ben Cohen. Commentary, May 24, 2013.

How Muslims should respond to terror. By Fareed Zakaria. GPS. CNN, May 25, 2013.

Muslim groups urge consultation over government plans to combat extremism. By Sam Jones. The Guardian, May 26, 2013.

UK in Crisis Mode Over London Slashing. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, May 27, 2013.

The Crushing of Middle Eastern Christianity. By Richard L. Russell.

The Crushing of Middle Eastern Christianity. By Richard L. Russell. The National Interest, May 10, 2013.

Israel Is a Small Country In a Big, Bad Neighborhood. By Margaret Wente.

Israel is a small country in a big, bad neighbourhood. By Margaret Wente. The Globe and Mail, May 11, 2013.

Muslim writer touts Israeli tolerance of minorities. By Ariel Ben Solomon. Jerusalem Post, May 24, 2013.

Diversity Makes Life Rich: An Ordinary Day in Israel. By Diana Bletter. The Huffington Post, May 20, 2013.

Wu Guanzheng, Retired Chinese Anti-Corruption Official, Asks Why Jews Are So Smart. By Isaac Stone Fish.

Retired high-ranking Chinese official asks why Jews are so smart. By Isaac Stone Fish. Foreign Policy, May 23, 2013.

President Obama’s Speech on Counterterrorism Strategy at National Defense University.

President Obama Speaks on the U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy. Video. WhiteHouse.gov, May 23, 2013. YouTube. Transcript at the New York Times.

Barack Obama on the 9/11 attacks. Hyde Park Herald, September 19, 2001. Also find it here and here.

Obama’s 9/11/2001 Reaction Repeated in UN Speech. By Joel Pollak. Breitbart, September 25, 2012.

The President’s Speech. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, May 25, 2013.

Rhetorical vs. Substantive Change in Obama’s Security Policy. By Max Boot. Commentary, May 23, 2013.

O “ends” terror war. By John Podhoretz. New York Post, May 23, 2013.

Obama Can’t Have It Both Ways on Terror. By Jonathan S. Tobin. Commentary, May 24, 2013.

Ralph Peters Blasts Obama’s Counterterrorism Speech. Video. America Live with Megyn Kelly. Fox News, May 24, 2013.

Obama’s Cynical War Speech. By Andrew C. McCarthy. National Review Online, May 25, 2013.

Obama’s Speech: Hamlet as Wartime Leader. By Bing West. National Review Online, May 23, 2013.

The War Professor; Authorize This. By Rosa Brooks. Foreign Policy, May 23, 2013. Brooks is one of the legalist left that Mead says Obama targeted his speech at.





Peter King Defends Drone Program, Rejects Obama’s “Moral Anguish.” By Daniel Foster. National Review Online, May 26, 2013.

Obama’s Speech: No More Drone Strikes? By John Yoo. National Review Online, May 23, 2013.

Why Gitmo Was Not Closed from the Get-Go. By James M. Wall [anti-Semite]. Wallwritings, May 24, 2013.

Not Doing “Whatever It Takes.” By Jim Talent. National Review Online, May 24, 2013.

Lindsey Graham: “I’ve Never Been More Worried About Nat’l Security.” Video. Fox News Sunday, May 26, 2013.

Obama Bows to the Islamic Street. By James Traub. Foreign Policy, May 24, 2013.

Obama’s Artful Anguish. By Ross Douthat. New York Times, May 25, 2013.

Fox News Sunday Panel on Terrorism, May 26, 2013. Hulu. Transcript.




Aaron Klein Podcast, May 26, 2013. News Talk Radio 77 WABC. Includes critique of Obama speech.

Obama Believes Terror Threat Reduced to Pre-9/11 Level. By Robert Burns. AP. Breitbart, May 25, 2013.

Homeland Security Committee Chair Michael McCaul: Obama Wants to Take U.S. Back to Pre-9/11 Preparedness. Video. Breitbart, May 26, 2013.

Bush’s war on terror is over. By Peter Bergen. CNN, May 26, 2013.

Back from perpetual war. The Irish Times, May 27, 2013.

The Other War on Terror. By Jane Harman. Foreign Policy, May 24, 2013.

Realism and Fantasy at the NDU. National Review Online, May 27, 2013.

In Terror Shift, Obama Took a Long Path. By Peter Baker. New York Times, May 27, 2013.

What Hasn’t Changed in the War on Terror. By Gerald F. Seib. Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2013.

The Retreat Doctrine. By Bret Stephens. Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2013. Also find it here. Video.




President Obama Declares Defeat in Global War on Terror. By John Bolton. The Daily Beast, May 28, 2013.

Our Ambivalent Commander-in-Chief. By Max Boot. Commentary, May 28, 2013.

Obama, Drones, and the Need for Transparency and Oversight. Winning Progressive, May 29, 2013.

The World Without America. By Richard N. Haass.

The World Without America. By Richard N. Haass. Project Syndicate, April 30, 2013.

How to build a second American century. By Richard N. Haass. Washington Post, April 26, 2013.

America’s Blinders. By Kishore Mahbubani.

America’s Blinders. By Kishore Mahbubani. Project Syndicate, May 24, 2013.

Female Suicide Bomber Injures 18 in Dagestan. By Arsen Mollayev.

Dagestan Suicide Bombing Injures 18 In Russian Region. By Arsen Mollayev. AP. The Huffington Post, May 25, 2013.

Ellie Rubenstein: “Everything I Love About Teaching Is Extinct.”

Teacher Resignation Video: Ellie Rubenstein Explains “Everything I Love About Teaching Is Extinct.” By Sara Gates. The Huffington Post, May 23, 2013.

In Pursuit of Happiness. Video by Ellie Rubenstein. Iquityoucantfireme, May 21, 2013. YouTube.

The K-Pop Plastic Surgery Obsession. By Zara Stone.

The K-Pop Plastic Surgery Obsession. By Zara Stone. The Atlantic, May 24, 2013.

The Rise and Fall of Charm in American Men. By Benjamin Schwartz.

The Rise and Fall of Charm in American Men. By Benjamin Schwartz. The Atlantic, June 2013. Also here.

8 Dating Turnoffs Men Over 50 Should Stop Doing. By Lisa Copeland. The Huffington Post, May 24, 2013.

For Putin, Paranoia Trumps Legitimacy. By Seth Mandel.

For Putin, Paranoia Trumps Legitimacy. By Seth Mandel. Commentary, May 22, 2013.

The World Still Needs American Hard Power. By Robert Kaplan.

The World Still Needs American Hard Power. By Robert Kaplan. Real Clear World, May 23, 2013.

The Bible’s Buried Secrets. NOVA Documentary.

The Bible’s Buried Secrets. Video. NOVA. PBS, November 18, 2008. Website with transcript. YouTube.

Found? King Solomon’s Mines. By Sharon Begley. Newsweek, October 27, 2008.

High-precision radiocarbon dating and historical biblical archaeology in southern Jordan. By Thomas E. Levy et al. PNAS, Vol. 105, No. 43 (October 27, 2008).

In a Ruined Copper Works, Evidence That Bolsters a Doubted Biblical Tale. By John Noble Wilford. New York Times, June 13, 2006.

Edom and Copper: The Emergence of Ancient Israel’s Rival. By Thomas E. Levy and Mohammad Najjar. Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol. 32, No. 4 (July/August 2006).

How We Know When Solomon Ruled. By Kenneth A. Kitchen. Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol. 27, No. 5 (September/October 2001).

Were the Victorians Smarter Than Us?

People Getting Dumber? Human Intelligence Has Declined Since Victorian Era, Research Suggests. By Macrina Cooper-White. The Huffington Post, May 22, 2013.

Victorian Era Brits Were Smarter Than Us. By Jennifer Viegas. Discovery News, May 17, 2013.

IQ of Western Civilization dropped since the Victorian Age. By Timothy Whiteman. Examiner, May 24, 2013.

The Victorians were smarter than us, study suggests. By Nick Collins. The Telegraph, May 13, 2013.

Were the Victorians cleverer than us? The decline in general intelligence estimated from a meta-analysis of the slowing of simple reaction time. By Michael A. Woodley, Jan te Nijenhuis, and Raegan Murphy. Intelligence, available online May 7, 2013.

Our fragile intellect. Part II. By Gerald R. Crabtree. Trends in Genetics, Vol. 29, No. 1 (January 2013).

The reproduction of intelligence. By Gerhard Meisenberg. Intelligence, Vol. 38, No. 2 (March/April 2010).

The decline of the world’s IQ. By Richard Lynn and John Harvey. Intelligence, Vol. 36, No. 2 (March/April 2008).

 



Palestine and the Left. By the Editors of Jacobin.

Palestine and the Left. By the Editors. Jacobin, April 2013.

The Oslo Illusion. By Adam Hanieh. Jacobin, April 2013.

For Madonna “Dressing Your Age” Is an Evolving Concept. By Ray A. Smith.

“Dressing Your Age” Is an Evolving Concept. By Ray A. Smith. Wall Street Journal, May 22, 2013. Video.

Madonna on AGE and the MDNA Tour DVD Announcement - EXTRA. Video. mymdna2, May 22, 2013. YouTube.

Madonna at the 2013 Billboard Awards (Photos and Videos). myMDNA.com, May 19, 2013. YouTube.

Madonna: Super Bowl Halftime Show Medley 2012. Video. womanizer2008brit, March 7, 2012. YouTube.

The MDNA Tour (Director’s Cut): Full Show– [Edit by BPP Productions]. Video. GLProductions02, May 14, 2013. YouTube. More videos of the MDNA Tour here, here, here, and here. The Virgin Tour Live 1985. Blond Ambition Tour 1990 Barcelona (also here). Who’s That Girl World Tour 1987 Tokyo. Ciao Italia Concert 1988.

Madonna: Like a Prayer [1989]. Video. warnerbrosrecords, October 26, 2009. YouTube.

Madonna: Take a Bow [1994]. Video. madonna, October 26, 2009. YouTube.

Madonna: The Power of Good-Bye [1998]. Video. madonna, October 26, 2009. YouTube. Also here.

Madonna: Ray of Light [1998]. Video. warnerbrosrecords, October 26, 2009. YouTube.























Smith:

Madonna continues to push boundaries and buttons. And once again, people are asking if she’s gone too far.

This time, it’s not the costumes she wears in her concerts but the racy clothing she has been wearing (or not wearing) to public events like Sunday’s Billboard Music Awards. Accepting a Top Touring Artist award on stage, Madonna showed up in a provocative and skimpy ensemble. The outfit, custom made by Givenchy’s Riccardo Tisci, included a black shredded-fishnet dress revealing a garter belt and black briefs.

The outfit set off a round of tweets. “Madonna you are my mothers age. Needless to say i don’t want to see either of you in fishnet tights,” one viewer complained.

Others expressed a blend of revulsion and envy. Madonna “is like 50 years old and has a better body than me oh,” another viewer complained.

To some people, older women often seem to be trying too hard when wearing sexy outfits. The look can come off as desperate, embarrassing, a little sad.

Madonna may be doing what she feels she must to remain relevant and compete with the likes of Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Britney Spears and Rihanna, who are each in their way indebted to her. Yet if Lady Gaga dressed in one of these outfits, people would probably yawn.

Given Madonna’s age, which is 54, is she making herself look foolish? Why do such provocative outfits seem less offensive when worn by younger women? Should older women wear something a little more covered up?

On the other hand, some people are asking a different question: When did we decide a woman over 50 should stop being overtly sexy? Why, if she still has a toned body, can't she wear risqué outfits?

Yet even Madonna’s fans might be forgiven for wondering how much longer she will continue wearing get-ups like this.

What does it all mean for real women and men entering their 40s, 50s and beyond who want to walk the line between dressing their age, whatever that means, and dressing as if they are denying their age? We'll wait to see what Madonna decides to wear next, when she is expected to appear as a presenter at a big Gucci-sponsored benefit concert next month in England.

Fearless in Fishnets: At 54, Madonna sported a provocative outfit from Givenchy

 to an awards show on May 19. Getty Images.

Madonna wore something slightly more demure—also from Givenchy—

at the Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute gala on May 6. Getty Images.

 



The 20th Anniversary of Waco. By Peter Berger.

A Grisly Anniversary. By Peter Berger. The American Interest, May 22, 2013.

Waco in red and blue: 20 years after the siege. By Philip Jenkins. Christian Century, May 15, 2013.

Berger:

Jenkins astutely describes how the Waco incident has supplied contradictory symbols to both the progressive and conservative camps in the ongoing American culture war. On the Left, Waco has come to symbolize the lethal potential of religious fundamentalism. The notion of mass suicide has obviously appealed to this constituency: Waco can then be interpreted as a companion piece of the Jonestown incident, when in 1978 another sect leader, Jim Jones, ordered the mass suicide of 918 people (also including children, and also in response to a perceived threat from the US government) at his so-called Peoples Temple in Guyana in South America. Then as now, this type of fundamentalism is associated by progressives with the Christian Right, the “gun culture” of the National Rifle Association, and conservatism in general. I suppose a proof text of this perspective could be the notorious statement by Barrack Obama, made at a fundraiser in 2008, saying that jobless people in small towns “get bitter [and] cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them”. (One may wonder what sort of religion Obama was “clinging to” during the twenty years he was a member of Jeremiah Wright’s church in Chicago.)

And on the Right, Waco symbolizes government overreach, tyranny and the attack on the Second Amendment of the constitution. On this side of the aisle, of course, there is the propensity to blame the FBI for the tragedy—a massacre by government forces rather than a mass suicide by the Davidians. It is then put in the company, not of Jonestown, but of Ruby Ridge, Idaho, where in 1992 federal agents (also from the FBI and the ATF) besieged the compound of the “survivalist” Randy Weaver and in the resulting firefight killed his wife and son.

I think that Jenkins is right when he suggests that the contradictory symbolizations of the Waco incident not only demarcate the boundaries of the two camps of the American culture war twenty years ago, but continue to do so today. He expresses the view that the tensions have lessened somewhat. I rather doubt it. Perhaps the ideological rhetoric is a bit less strident, but the polarization in politics has deepened, as the two major parties are more clearly aligned with one or the other camp in the culture war. Both moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans, the kind of politicians who make compromises possible in a democracy, have been marginalized if not eliminated in their respective parties. And survey data show that the religious profile of an individual is a major predictor of which side he or she belongs to. The polarization continues, as does the mutual demonization of the two camps manifested so clearly in the conflicting interpretations of Waco. Of course both stereotypes are distortive—most conservatives are not religious fanatics with guns, most progressives are not bent on federal thugs running roughshod over the Bill of Rights. Stereotypes can be empirically false, yet be very useful politically.

The Mideast Crack-Up.

The Mideast Crack-Up. Roundtable Moderated by David Samuels, with Robert Worth, David Goldman, Edward Luttwak, Amos Harel, Nathan Thrall, and Lee Smith. Tablet, May 21, 2013.

John Kerry’s Silly Play. By Lee Smith. Tablet, May 22, 2013.

The Myth of the Arab State. By Aaron David Miller. The National Interest, May 21, 2013.

Tell Me How This Ends. By Thomas L. Friedman. New York Times, May 21, 2013.

“Liberal” Think Tank Caught with Hand in the Cookie Jar. By Walter Russell Mead.

“Liberal” Think Tank Caught with Hand in the Cookie Jar. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, May 23, 2013.

The Secret Donors Behind the Center for American Progress and Other Think Tanks. By Ken Silverstein. The Nation, May 21, 2013.


Mead:

Yet the clumsy incompetence of CAP management aside, there’s a bigger problem here that The Nation doesn’t want to confront. The American Left, whose soul and conscience the magazine purports to be, wants to give Washington politicians more and more influence over the economic reins and resources of the country. This inevitably drives more money into the political process and creates more incentives for exactly the kind of behavior The Nation deplores.

The problems of the American Left are much deeper than amateur-hour leadership of a think tank. Left politics in America are caught in a trap. The Left doesn’t pose a serious threat to the broad contours of the capitalist system in the US; the Constitution and public sentiment block any real shift in American politics away from liberal market capitalism. Thus the Left oscillates ceaselessly between a futile politics of “purity” with no prospect of ever affecting anything important and a toxic “partnership” with the powers-that-be—a relationship in which it is inevitably manipulated and abused.

The chief function of the American environmental movement, for example, is to paint green lipstick on corporate pigs like Solyndra or the ethanol scam. The Nation is right to chide the Center for American Progress for becoming the servant of corporate interests rather than an opponent of them; what it misses is that this relationship describes the limits within which the movement as a whole is bound to operate.

There is no actual or potential social or political basis in America for genuinely anti-capitalist politics. Those who try to convince themselves otherwise are indulging in the kind of petty bourgeois self-deceit for which Karl Marx reserved his fullest and most biting contempt.


For an example of the Left’s “futile politics of ‘purity’” that Mead refers to, see: Letter to “The Nation” From a Young Radical. By Bhaskar Sunkara. The Nation, May 21, 2013. Also Bhaskar Sunkara video, Beyond the Welfare State. See also Jacobin, left-wing magazine edited by Sunkara.

Social Media, the Hookup Culture – and the Insidious Quest for Fame. By Rush Limbaugh.

Social Media, the Hookup Culture – and the Insidious Quest for Fame. By Rush Limbaugh. RushLimbaugh.com, May 23, 2013.

The “Hook-Up Culture”: Dates Are Dead, Sex Is Alive? By Martha MacCallum. Video. Fox News Insider, May 23, 2013.

Time to stop hooking up. (You know you want to.) By Donna Freitas. Washington Post, March 29, 2013.

Abstinence Is Not the Radical Solution to Hookup Culture. By Amanda Hess. Slate, April 1, 2013.

Is Sex Still Sexy? By Emily Esfahani Smith. The Atlantic, May 17, 2013.

Give Monogamy a Chance. By Emily Esfahani Smith. Wall Street Journal, April 9, 2013.

Why Is There a Hookup Culture? By Dennis Prager. NJBR, April 30, 2013.

A Link to Ears of Early Humans. By Douglas Quenqua.

A Link to Ears of Early Humans. By Douglas Quenqua. New York Times, May 20, 2013.

Early hominin auditory ossicles from South Africa. By Rolf M. Quam et al. PNAS, published online before print, May 13, 2013. Get PDF in 6 months.

Mayor Bloomberg to Students: Become Plumbers.

Skip college and become a plumber: Mayor Bloomberg. By Jennifer Fermino and Jonathan Lemire. New York Daily News, May 17, 2013.

Mayor Bloomberg’s advice to students: Become plumbers. RT, May 20, 2013.

Pipe dream: Skip college, become a plumber, NYC Mayor Bloomberg says. FoxNews.com, May 19, 2013.

Mayor Bloomberg Gets It Right Over Harvard/Plumber Comments. By Steve Siebold. The Huffington Post, May 21, 2013.

John Gambling and Mayor Bloomberg. Audio. WOR Radio 710, May 17, 2013. Full Bloomberg comment runs from 3:40 to 5:40 in podcast.




Kenyon College: NYC Mayor Bloomberg Commencement Address. Video. KenyonCollegeVideo, May 18, 2013. YouTube.