America turns left on social issues, but not on government. By David Lightman. McClatchy Newspapers, April 15, 2013.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
The Iron Wall (We and the Arabs). By Vladimir Jabotinsky
The Iron Wall (We and the Arabs). By Vladimir Jabotinsky. The Jewish Herald (South Africa), November 26, 1937. Originally published in Russian in Rassvyet, November 4, 1923. DanielPipes.org. Also find it here and here.
Can Two Walk Together? A Drama. By A. B. Yehoshua. Translation by Dr. David Janner-Klausner. Adapted for stage by Amy Rosenthal. Jewish Quarterly, No. 221 (Spring 2012). Also find it here.
London, 1934 — two of the great Zionist leaders, Ben Gurion and Jabotinsky — meet to discuss the character of the future Jewish State.
Can Two Walk Together? A Drama. By A. B. Yehoshua. Translation by Dr. David Janner-Klausner. Adapted for stage by Amy Rosenthal. Jewish Quarterly, No. 221 (Spring 2012). Also find it here.
London, 1934 — two of the great Zionist leaders, Ben Gurion and Jabotinsky — meet to discuss the character of the future Jewish State.
Media Protecting Muslims? Limbaugh’s Boston Bombing Reaction. By Cenk Uygur.
Media Protecting Muslims? Limbaugh’s Boston Bombing Reaction. By Cenk Uygur. Video. The Young Turks, April 17, 2013. YouTube.
The Left Politicizes the Boston Bombing. By Rush Limbaugh. RushLimbaugh.com, April 16, 2013. Audio at Daily Rushbo.
The Left Politicizes the Boston Bombing. By Rush Limbaugh. RushLimbaugh.com, April 16, 2013. Audio at Daily Rushbo.
The Futility of Terrorism. By Max Boot.
The Futility of Terrorism. By Max Boot. Wall Street Journal, April 16, 2013.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
The GOP and the Bush Legacy: Part Two. By Walter Russell Mead.
The GOP and the Bush Legacy: Part Two. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, April 16, 2013.
Walter Russell Mead’s Shallow and Misleading Attack on the Bush Legacy. By Peter Wehner. Commentary, April 16, 2013.
Walter Russell Mead and the Bush Legacy. By Will Inboden. Foreign Policy, April 15, 2013.
Walter Russell Mead’s Shallow and Misleading Attack on the Bush Legacy. By Peter Wehner. Commentary, April 16, 2013.
Walter Russell Mead and the Bush Legacy. By Will Inboden. Foreign Policy, April 15, 2013.
The Outsized Role of Britain in the Modern World. By Michael J. Lotus.
The Outsized Role of Britain in the Modern World. By Michael J. Lotus (Lexington Green). America 3.0, March 13, 2013. Also at Chicago Boyz.
Walter Russell Mead: Channeling America 3.0??? By Michael J. Lotus.
Walter Russell Mead: Channeling America 3.0??? By Michael J. Lotus (Lexington Green). Chicago Boyz, February 23, 2013. Also at America 3.0.
America 3.0 website.
America 3.0 website.
The Age of Hamilton. By Walter Russell Mead.
The Age of Hamilton. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, December 6, 2011.
Game of Thrones’s Problem With Quests. By Ross Douthat et al.
Game
of Thrones’s Problem With Quests. By Ross Douthat, Spencer Kornhaber, and Christopher Orr. The Atlantic, April 14, 2013.
More on Game of Thrones here and here.
Game of Thrones S3E03: Jamie and Brienne Held Captive and Head Toward Harrenhall. Video. GameOfThrones2013, April 17, 2013. YouTube.
Game of Thrones S3E03: Jamie Loses His Hand. Video. Vengrence, April 15, 2013. YouTube.
Game of Thrones S3E03: Jamie and Brienne. Video. danceonceilings77, April 15, 2013. YouTube.
More on Game of Thrones here and here.
Game of Thrones S3E03: Jamie and Brienne Held Captive and Head Toward Harrenhall. Video. GameOfThrones2013, April 17, 2013. YouTube.
Game of Thrones S3E03: Jamie Loses His Hand. Video. Vengrence, April 15, 2013. YouTube.
Game of Thrones S3E03: Jamie and Brienne. Video. danceonceilings77, April 15, 2013. YouTube.
The Enemy-Industrial Complex. By Tom Engelhardt.
The Enemy-Industrial Complex. By Tom Engelhardt. TomDispatch, April 14, 2013. Also at The Nation.
Iraq Ten Years Later: A Different Country in a Different Region. By Marina Ottaway.
Iraq Ten Years Later: A Different Country in a Different Region. By Marina Ottaway. Wilson Center, Spring 2013. PDF.
Relationships Are More Important Than Ambition. By Emily Esfahani Smith.
Relationships Are More Important Than Ambition. By Emily Esfahani Smith. The Atlantic, April 16, 2013.
Al Jazeera America – The Newsroom We’ve Been Waiting For. By Nida Khan.
Al Jazeera America – The Newsroom We’ve Been Waiting For. By Nida Khan. The Huffington Post, January 23, 2013.
Fayyad’s Exit Signals Oslo’s Bankruptcy. By Jonathan S. Tobin.
Fayyad’s Exit Signals Oslo’s Bankruptcy. By Jonathan S. Tobin. Commentary, April 14, 2013. Also at New York Post.
Tobin:
The resignation of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is a pivotal moment in the history of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. His exit lays bare the collapse of what The New York Times called “Fayyadism” — the hope that Palestinian nationalism would be refocused on development and coexistence rather than violence. Without the fig leaf of responsibility that Fayyad provided, the idea that the PA is anything but a corrupt regime fatally compromised by connections with terror rings false.
Fayyad’s inability to either generate much public support among the people of the West Bank or to use his credentials as a respected international figure to outmaneuver PA President Mahmoud Abbas is a tragedy for the Palestinian people. His failure dooms them to a choice between the venal and incompetent cadres of Fatah or the bloody Islamist tyranny of Hamas.
Fayyad has always had the strong support of both the United States and of Israel, which despite its suspicions about the PA has seen him as an essential interlocutor and partner. His problem is that Abbas’ Fatah Party viewed him as an obstacle to both its drive for political hegemony in the West Bank as well as to the continuation of its crooked patronage schemes that diverted foreign-aid money into its leaders’ pockets.
Without a Fayyad (or someone like him), there is no pretense that what the peace processers seek to create in the West Bank is a state living in peace with Israel or its other Arab neighbors, rather than a kleptocracy run by terrorists. That is not only bad news for the Palestinian people, but also a guarantee that the terms of any peace deal signed with them will not be observed.
This conundrum goes to the heart of the original motivations behind the Oslo process that created the PA in 1993.
Shimon Peres conceived the Oslo process as a path to a “New Middle East” in which Israel and a Palestinian state led by Fayyads would create a Benelux-like enclave in the Middle East. The late Yitzhak Rabin, though, thought handing the territories over to Yasser Arafat would work because the old terrorist would be willing to settle for statehood in only part of the country and would then be free to quash Hamas and any other terrorists without the interference of a Supreme Court or gadfly groups that inhibited Israeli counterterror measures.
As it turns out, both were wrong. Peres’ hopes about what the PA would become were delusional. But the hard-boiled Rabin was just as wrong to think a Palestinian state led by corrupt terrorists isn’t antithetical to the entire concept of two states for two peoples living alongside each other in peace. This has already been amply demonstrated, first by Arafat’s use of terrorism and then by what has happened in Gaza where an independent Palestinian state in all but name already exists.
Fayyad’s tragedy was not just that both Fatah and Hamas wanted to be rid of him, but that he had virtually no support among ordinary Palestinians. So long as shedding Jewish blood is the main factor that gives a Palestinian political party credibility, men like Fayyad will have no chance no matter how much they are applauded by Americans or Israelis.
The collapse of his effort to change Palestinian politics is therefore a key moment that should signal to the world that it must dispense with the theories of both Peres and Rabin and cease ignoring reality in favor of illusions.
Tobin:
The resignation of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is a pivotal moment in the history of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. His exit lays bare the collapse of what The New York Times called “Fayyadism” — the hope that Palestinian nationalism would be refocused on development and coexistence rather than violence. Without the fig leaf of responsibility that Fayyad provided, the idea that the PA is anything but a corrupt regime fatally compromised by connections with terror rings false.
Fayyad’s inability to either generate much public support among the people of the West Bank or to use his credentials as a respected international figure to outmaneuver PA President Mahmoud Abbas is a tragedy for the Palestinian people. His failure dooms them to a choice between the venal and incompetent cadres of Fatah or the bloody Islamist tyranny of Hamas.
Fayyad has always had the strong support of both the United States and of Israel, which despite its suspicions about the PA has seen him as an essential interlocutor and partner. His problem is that Abbas’ Fatah Party viewed him as an obstacle to both its drive for political hegemony in the West Bank as well as to the continuation of its crooked patronage schemes that diverted foreign-aid money into its leaders’ pockets.
Without a Fayyad (or someone like him), there is no pretense that what the peace processers seek to create in the West Bank is a state living in peace with Israel or its other Arab neighbors, rather than a kleptocracy run by terrorists. That is not only bad news for the Palestinian people, but also a guarantee that the terms of any peace deal signed with them will not be observed.
This conundrum goes to the heart of the original motivations behind the Oslo process that created the PA in 1993.
Shimon Peres conceived the Oslo process as a path to a “New Middle East” in which Israel and a Palestinian state led by Fayyads would create a Benelux-like enclave in the Middle East. The late Yitzhak Rabin, though, thought handing the territories over to Yasser Arafat would work because the old terrorist would be willing to settle for statehood in only part of the country and would then be free to quash Hamas and any other terrorists without the interference of a Supreme Court or gadfly groups that inhibited Israeli counterterror measures.
As it turns out, both were wrong. Peres’ hopes about what the PA would become were delusional. But the hard-boiled Rabin was just as wrong to think a Palestinian state led by corrupt terrorists isn’t antithetical to the entire concept of two states for two peoples living alongside each other in peace. This has already been amply demonstrated, first by Arafat’s use of terrorism and then by what has happened in Gaza where an independent Palestinian state in all but name already exists.
Fayyad’s tragedy was not just that both Fatah and Hamas wanted to be rid of him, but that he had virtually no support among ordinary Palestinians. So long as shedding Jewish blood is the main factor that gives a Palestinian political party credibility, men like Fayyad will have no chance no matter how much they are applauded by Americans or Israelis.
The collapse of his effort to change Palestinian politics is therefore a key moment that should signal to the world that it must dispense with the theories of both Peres and Rabin and cease ignoring reality in favor of illusions.
Boston: The Spirit of 1775 and the Spirit of 2013.
Boston: The Spirit of 1775.
Boston: The Spirit of 2013.
Boston Marathon Bombing Kills Three, Injures Over 140. By Jimmy Golen. Real Clear Politics, April 15, 2013.
Boston Marathon bombing kills 3, injures over 140. AP. KTVU, April 15, 2013.
Boston Marathon terror blast kills 3, injures over 144 including 8 kids. By Bev Ford, Sasha Goldstein, Ginger Adams Otis, and Wayne Coffey. New York Daily News, April 15, 2013.
An Explosion at the Boston Marathon. By Nicholas Thompson. The New Yorker, April 15, 2013.
CNN: Ball Bearings Used In Explosive Devices, Multiple Amputations Being Performed, Wounded 132+. By Noah Rothman. Mediaite, April 15, 2013.
Sports writer Mike Lupica: People were “running in terror.” Video. NBC Nightly News, April 15, 2013.
Marathon bombings bear similarities to IED attacks. By Bryan Bender. Boston Globe, April 16, 2013. Also find it here.
Boston attack underscores growing threat of IEDs in America. By Barnini Chakraborty. FoxNews.com, April 16, 2013.
Al Qaeda’s Recipe for Pressure-Cooker Bombs. By Eli Lake. The Daily Beast, April 16, 2013.
Who’s Behind the Boston Bombings? Some Initial Clues. By Jessica Stern. Time, April 16, 2013.
Boston Marathon bombs: al-Qaeda’s Inspire magazine taught pressure cooker bomb-making techniques. By Richard Spencer. The Telegraph, April 16, 2013.
A perfect day, then the unimaginable. By Kevin Cullen. Boston Globe, April 16, 2013. Also find it here.
We must confront, defeat acts of evil. By Joe Fitzgerald. Boston Herald, April 16, 2013.
Boston columnist Mike Barnicle: “This was an attack on family.” By Scott Stump. Today, April 16, 2013.
Bombing of Boston Marathon, where three are killed and hundreds injured, latest example of how none of us are truly safe. By Mike Lupica. New York Daily News, April 15, 2013.
Whoever is behind the Boston Marathon bombings brought war to the American homeland and hit us all. By Mike Lupica. New York Daily News, April 16, 2013.
Boston Marathon massacre reveals portraits in courage. By Deborah Hastings. New York Daily News, April 16, 2013.
Photos of the Boston Marathon Bombing. The Atlantic, April 15, 2013. Photos at the Boston Globe.
Martin Richard Dead: Boy, 8, Dies In Explosion At Boston Marathon (VIDEO). The Huffington Post, April 16, 2013.
Krystle Campbell, Second Boston Marathon Bombing Victim, Reportedly Identified. The Huffington Post, April 16, 2013.
Second Boston Marathon victim identified: Krystle Campbell. By Liz Goodwin. Yahoo News, April 16, 2013.
Second Boston bombing victim identified as Krystle Campbell, 29. By Scott Malone and Dan Burns. Reuters. Chicago Tribune, April 16, 2013.
Krystle Campbell of Arlington “was always right there if you needed her.” By Bryan Marquard. Boston Globe, April 16, 2013. Also find it here.
Boston Marathon bombs: parents of victim Krystle Campbell “thought she had survived.” By Jon Swaine and Nick Allen. The Telegraph, April 16, 2013.
Memorial to Krystle Campbell. Hordon Health Facebook, April 16, 2013.
Lu Lingzi, Boston Marathon Bombing Victim, Was “Particularly Smart,” Loved Cooking. By Didi Tang. AP. The Huffington Post, April 17, 2013.
Corcoran family has lives “ripped apart” by tragic bombing of Boston Marathon. Kevin Corcoran’s wife, Celeste, lost both of her legs below the knee. His daughter was badly wounded by shrapnel. By Jennifer Fermino and Daniel Beekman. New York Daily News, April 16, 2013.
Sydney Corcoran survived being mowed down by a car in June 2011, but has now suffered arterial injuries as a result of the bombings that occurred at the Boston Marathon. Her mother, Celeste, lost both of her legs below the knees as a result of the blasts. By Stephen Rex Brown. New York Daily News, April 17, 2013.
Lowell mom, daughter seriously injured in Boston blast. By Christopher Scott. Lowell Sun, April 16, 2013.
Tragedy of woman, 18, in iconic Boston blast image being comforted by man in red t-shirt: Student had her limbs shredded and her mom’s legs were amputated. Daily Mail, April 17, 2013.
Photo of female casualty becomes touchstone in Boston’s trauma. By Christine Mai-Duc. Los Angeles Times, April 16, 2013.
Patriots’ Day Defiled. By E.J. Dionne. Real Clear Politics, April 16, 2013.
Boston and the American Spirit. By David Callaway. USA Today, April 16, 2013.
Boston and a History Borne on the Night Wind of the Past. By John Nichols. The Nation, April 16, 2013.
Boston and Cowardice and America the Blind. By Barry Lando. The Huffington Post, April 16, 2013.
Why Boston Bombings Might Be Scarier Than 9/11. By Ron Fournier. National Journal, April 16, 2013.
Schrödinger’s Bombs. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, April 16, 2013.
The pursuit of liberty is a marathon. By Dr. Keith Ablow. FoxNews.com, April 16, 2013.
Call it Terror? Of Course. By Jonathan S. Tobin. Commentary, April 16, 2013.
Scott Brown Talks To Fox About Boston Bombings: “I’m Mad,” “We Need To Fight Back.” By Andrew Kirell. Mediaite, April 15, 2013.
Response to Boston bombings must be cautious and calculated. By Tony Karon. The National, April 16, 2013.
Boston Reporters Share Chilling Accounts of Marathon Bombing. By Jack Mirkinson. The Huffington Post, April 16, 2013.
CNN Analyst Suggests “Right-Wing Extremists” Could Be Behind Boston Bombing. By Matt Hadro. NewsBusters, April 15, 2013. John Nolte at Breitbart. Noah Rothman at Mediaite.
Matthews Speculates About “Far Right,” Anti-Tax, Anti-Kennedy Terrorism Behind Boston Marathon Attacks. By Andrew Kirell. Mediaite, April 16, 2013.
Wolf Blitzer Did Not Blame Right For Boston Bombing And Doesn’t Have To Apologize To Anyone. By Noah Rothman. Mediaite, April 16, 2013.
Al Sharpton’s Radio Producer Tweets Speculation That “Anti-Gov” Group Behind Boston Marathon Bombings. By Ken Shepherd. NewsBusters, April 15, 2013.
Cenk Uygur: If Bomber Is A “Right-Wing White Guy” He Will Be Excused. Real Clear Politics, April 16, 2013.
Let’s hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a white American. By David Sirota. Salon, April 16, 2013.
The Left Politicizes the Boston Bombing. By Rush Limbaugh. RushLimbaugh.com, April 16, 2013.
Muslim Brotherhood leader points to conspiracy behind Boston bombing. By David Kenner. Foreign Policy, April 16, 2013.
Timeline: From Boston Marathon to Chicago Haymarket riots – bombings in U.S. history. By Craig Newman. Chicago Sun-Times, April 15, 2013.
Latest Updates on Aftermath of Boston Marathon Explosions. The Lede blog. New York Times, April 16, 2013.
Raw Video: Boston Marathon Blast As It Happened. Real Clear Politics, April 15, 2013. YouTube. Find more video here.
 |
| The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775. John Trumbull, 1786. |
Boston: The Spirit of 2013.
 |
| Medical workers aid injured people at the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon after the twin blasts. Charles Krupa / AP, April 15, 2013. |
 |
| Sydney Corcoran, 18, is tended to at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, in Boston, Monday, April 15, 2013. Two explosions shattered the euphoria of the Boston Marathon finish line on Monday, sending authorities out on the course to carry off the injured while the stragglers were rerouted away from the smoking site of the blasts. (AP Photo/The Boston Globe, John Tlumacki). |
Boston Marathon Bombing Kills Three, Injures Over 140. By Jimmy Golen. Real Clear Politics, April 15, 2013.
Boston Marathon bombing kills 3, injures over 140. AP. KTVU, April 15, 2013.
Boston Marathon terror blast kills 3, injures over 144 including 8 kids. By Bev Ford, Sasha Goldstein, Ginger Adams Otis, and Wayne Coffey. New York Daily News, April 15, 2013.
An Explosion at the Boston Marathon. By Nicholas Thompson. The New Yorker, April 15, 2013.
CNN: Ball Bearings Used In Explosive Devices, Multiple Amputations Being Performed, Wounded 132+. By Noah Rothman. Mediaite, April 15, 2013.
Sports writer Mike Lupica: People were “running in terror.” Video. NBC Nightly News, April 15, 2013.
Behind the camera: John Tlumacki’s first hand account of the Boston Marathon bombing. By Tom Fox. Dallas Morning News, April 16, 2013.
Tragedy in Boston: One Photographer’s Eyewitness Account. By John Tlumacki. Time, April 15, 2013.
Marathon bombings bear similarities to IED attacks. By Bryan Bender. Boston Globe, April 16, 2013. Also find it here.
Boston attack underscores growing threat of IEDs in America. By Barnini Chakraborty. FoxNews.com, April 16, 2013.
Al Qaeda’s Recipe for Pressure-Cooker Bombs. By Eli Lake. The Daily Beast, April 16, 2013.
Who’s Behind the Boston Bombings? Some Initial Clues. By Jessica Stern. Time, April 16, 2013.
Boston Marathon bombs: al-Qaeda’s Inspire magazine taught pressure cooker bomb-making techniques. By Richard Spencer. The Telegraph, April 16, 2013.
A perfect day, then the unimaginable. By Kevin Cullen. Boston Globe, April 16, 2013. Also find it here.
We must confront, defeat acts of evil. By Joe Fitzgerald. Boston Herald, April 16, 2013.
Boston columnist Mike Barnicle: “This was an attack on family.” By Scott Stump. Today, April 16, 2013.
Bombing of Boston Marathon, where three are killed and hundreds injured, latest example of how none of us are truly safe. By Mike Lupica. New York Daily News, April 15, 2013.
Whoever is behind the Boston Marathon bombings brought war to the American homeland and hit us all. By Mike Lupica. New York Daily News, April 16, 2013.
Boston Marathon massacre reveals portraits in courage. By Deborah Hastings. New York Daily News, April 16, 2013.
Photos of the Boston Marathon Bombing. The Atlantic, April 15, 2013. Photos at the Boston Globe.
Martin Richard Dead: Boy, 8, Dies In Explosion At Boston Marathon (VIDEO). The Huffington Post, April 16, 2013.
Krystle Campbell, Second Boston Marathon Bombing Victim, Reportedly Identified. The Huffington Post, April 16, 2013.
Second Boston Marathon victim identified: Krystle Campbell. By Liz Goodwin. Yahoo News, April 16, 2013.
Second Boston bombing victim identified as Krystle Campbell, 29. By Scott Malone and Dan Burns. Reuters. Chicago Tribune, April 16, 2013.
Krystle Campbell of Arlington “was always right there if you needed her.” By Bryan Marquard. Boston Globe, April 16, 2013. Also find it here.
Boston Marathon bombs: parents of victim Krystle Campbell “thought she had survived.” By Jon Swaine and Nick Allen. The Telegraph, April 16, 2013.
Memorial to Krystle Campbell. Hordon Health Facebook, April 16, 2013.
Lu Lingzi, Boston Marathon Bombing Victim, Was “Particularly Smart,” Loved Cooking. By Didi Tang. AP. The Huffington Post, April 17, 2013.
Corcoran family has lives “ripped apart” by tragic bombing of Boston Marathon. Kevin Corcoran’s wife, Celeste, lost both of her legs below the knee. His daughter was badly wounded by shrapnel. By Jennifer Fermino and Daniel Beekman. New York Daily News, April 16, 2013.
Sydney Corcoran survived being mowed down by a car in June 2011, but has now suffered arterial injuries as a result of the bombings that occurred at the Boston Marathon. Her mother, Celeste, lost both of her legs below the knees as a result of the blasts. By Stephen Rex Brown. New York Daily News, April 17, 2013.
Lowell mom, daughter seriously injured in Boston blast. By Christopher Scott. Lowell Sun, April 16, 2013.
Tragedy of woman, 18, in iconic Boston blast image being comforted by man in red t-shirt: Student had her limbs shredded and her mom’s legs were amputated. Daily Mail, April 17, 2013.
Photo of female casualty becomes touchstone in Boston’s trauma. By Christine Mai-Duc. Los Angeles Times, April 16, 2013.
Patriots’ Day Defiled. By E.J. Dionne. Real Clear Politics, April 16, 2013.
Boston and the American Spirit. By David Callaway. USA Today, April 16, 2013.
Boston and a History Borne on the Night Wind of the Past. By John Nichols. The Nation, April 16, 2013.
Boston and Cowardice and America the Blind. By Barry Lando. The Huffington Post, April 16, 2013.
Why Boston Bombings Might Be Scarier Than 9/11. By Ron Fournier. National Journal, April 16, 2013.
Schrödinger’s Bombs. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, April 16, 2013.
The pursuit of liberty is a marathon. By Dr. Keith Ablow. FoxNews.com, April 16, 2013.
Call it Terror? Of Course. By Jonathan S. Tobin. Commentary, April 16, 2013.
Scott Brown Talks To Fox About Boston Bombings: “I’m Mad,” “We Need To Fight Back.” By Andrew Kirell. Mediaite, April 15, 2013.
Response to Boston bombings must be cautious and calculated. By Tony Karon. The National, April 16, 2013.
Boston Reporters Share Chilling Accounts of Marathon Bombing. By Jack Mirkinson. The Huffington Post, April 16, 2013.
CNN Analyst Suggests “Right-Wing Extremists” Could Be Behind Boston Bombing. By Matt Hadro. NewsBusters, April 15, 2013. John Nolte at Breitbart. Noah Rothman at Mediaite.
Matthews Speculates About “Far Right,” Anti-Tax, Anti-Kennedy Terrorism Behind Boston Marathon Attacks. By Andrew Kirell. Mediaite, April 16, 2013.
Wolf Blitzer Did Not Blame Right For Boston Bombing And Doesn’t Have To Apologize To Anyone. By Noah Rothman. Mediaite, April 16, 2013.
Al Sharpton’s Radio Producer Tweets Speculation That “Anti-Gov” Group Behind Boston Marathon Bombings. By Ken Shepherd. NewsBusters, April 15, 2013.
Cenk Uygur: If Bomber Is A “Right-Wing White Guy” He Will Be Excused. Real Clear Politics, April 16, 2013.
Let’s hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a white American. By David Sirota. Salon, April 16, 2013.
The Left Politicizes the Boston Bombing. By Rush Limbaugh. RushLimbaugh.com, April 16, 2013.
Muslim Brotherhood leader points to conspiracy behind Boston bombing. By David Kenner. Foreign Policy, April 16, 2013.
Timeline: From Boston Marathon to Chicago Haymarket riots – bombings in U.S. history. By Craig Newman. Chicago Sun-Times, April 15, 2013.
Latest Updates on Aftermath of Boston Marathon Explosions. The Lede blog. New York Times, April 16, 2013.
Raw Video: Boston Marathon Blast As It Happened. Real Clear Politics, April 15, 2013. YouTube. Find more video here.
Erotic Obsession on Wall Street.
Wall Street analyst David Gray crossed Atlantic to harass former gal pal Daniela Rausnitz. By Nancy Dillon. New York Daily News, December 6, 2011.
Stalked all the way across the Atlantic: Terror of ex-lover at hands of Wall Street banker who chased her to London. By Chris Greenwood and Daniel Bates. Daily Mail, December 6, 2011.
Stalked all the way across the Atlantic: Terror of ex-lover at hands of Wall Street banker who chased her to London. By Chris Greenwood and Daniel Bates. Daily Mail, December 6, 2011.
The Problem With the Press, Part 1: Religion. By Carl M. Cannon.
The Problem With the Press, Part 1: Religion. By Carl M. Cannon. Real Clear Politics, April 15, 2013.
Monday, April 15, 2013
Family Meltdown. By Robert J. Samuelson.
Family Meltdown. By Robert J. Samuelson. Real Clear Politics, April 15, 2013. Also at the Washington Post.
No One’s Crying about the Decline of Men. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, April 16, 2013.
Why Economics Can’t Explain Our Cultural Divide. By Charles Murray. Wall Street Journal, March 16, 2012. Also find it here.
Belmont and Fishtown. By Charles Murray. The New Criterion, January 2012.
Wayward Sons: The Emerging Gender Gap in Labor Markets and Education. By David Autor and Melanie Wasserman. Third Way. PDF.
No One’s Crying about the Decline of Men. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, April 16, 2013.
Why Economics Can’t Explain Our Cultural Divide. By Charles Murray. Wall Street Journal, March 16, 2012. Also find it here.
Belmont and Fishtown. By Charles Murray. The New Criterion, January 2012.
Wayward Sons: The Emerging Gender Gap in Labor Markets and Education. By David Autor and Melanie Wasserman. Third Way. PDF.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
David Priestland: Merchant Ideology Has Come to Dominate the Political Class.
David Priestland: “Merchant ideology has come to dominate the political class.” Video. The Guardian, September 3, 2012. YouTube.
Historian David Priestland is interviewed about his latest book, Merchant, Soldier, Sage, in which he argues that history can be seen as a series of battles between four distinct groups: merchants, warriors, sages and workers. When one group becomes dominant, he says, a crisis is never far away.
Whatever happened to responsible capitalism? By David Priestland. The Guardian, September 23, 2012.
Popular history has been conquered by a complacent liberalism. By David Priestland. New Statesman, November 1, 2012.
Review of David Priestland: Merchant, Soldier, Sage: A History of the World in Three Castes. New York: The Penguin Press, 2013, 343 pp. By Richard J. Evans. The Guardian, August 22, 2012.
A history of power: The mighty coin. Review of David Priestland: Merchant, Soldier, Sage. The Economist, September 1, 2012.
Review of David Priestland: Merchant, Soldier, Sage. By T.H. Barrett. The Independent, September 15, 2012.
Review of David Priestland: Merchant, Soldier, Sage. By Richard Bosworth. Times Higher Education, September 20, 2012.
Route to conflict? David Priestland’s Merchant, Soldier, Sage. By David Blackburn. The Spectator, October 19, 2012.
Priestland contends perpetual power struggle in Merchant, Soldier, Sage. By Matthew Price. The National, October 25, 2012.
Review of David Cannadine, The Undivided Past: Humanity Beyond Our Differences. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013, 352 pp. By David Priestland. The Guardian, April 11, 2013.
Historian David Priestland is interviewed about his latest book, Merchant, Soldier, Sage, in which he argues that history can be seen as a series of battles between four distinct groups: merchants, warriors, sages and workers. When one group becomes dominant, he says, a crisis is never far away.
Whatever happened to responsible capitalism? By David Priestland. The Guardian, September 23, 2012.
Popular history has been conquered by a complacent liberalism. By David Priestland. New Statesman, November 1, 2012.
Review of David Priestland: Merchant, Soldier, Sage: A History of the World in Three Castes. New York: The Penguin Press, 2013, 343 pp. By Richard J. Evans. The Guardian, August 22, 2012.
A history of power: The mighty coin. Review of David Priestland: Merchant, Soldier, Sage. The Economist, September 1, 2012.
Review of David Priestland: Merchant, Soldier, Sage. By T.H. Barrett. The Independent, September 15, 2012.
Review of David Priestland: Merchant, Soldier, Sage. By Richard Bosworth. Times Higher Education, September 20, 2012.
Route to conflict? David Priestland’s Merchant, Soldier, Sage. By David Blackburn. The Spectator, October 19, 2012.
Priestland contends perpetual power struggle in Merchant, Soldier, Sage. By Matthew Price. The National, October 25, 2012.
Review of David Cannadine, The Undivided Past: Humanity Beyond Our Differences. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013, 352 pp. By David Priestland. The Guardian, April 11, 2013.
British Conservatism’s Void of Ideas. By David Selbourne.
Into the new blue void. By David Selbourne. New Statesman, April 9, 2013. Also find it here.
Toryism no longer has a distinct core of belief. The Conservative Party does not know what it wants or what it should be. How has this happened?
Leader: Bending the arc of history towards freedom and justice. New Statesman, April 12, 2013.
Toryism no longer has a distinct core of belief. The Conservative Party does not know what it wants or what it should be. How has this happened?
Leader: Bending the arc of history towards freedom and justice. New Statesman, April 12, 2013.
Archie Bunker on Gun Control and Manhood.
Archie Bunker, created by Norman Lear for
the 1970s TV show All in the Family,
is the classic liberal caricature of a Jacksonian as boobus americanus. Yet
Archie shows an instinctive understanding of the Jacksonian concept of
masculinity and its connection to gun ownership. Here in his inimitable way,
Archie (Carroll O’Connor) explains his objection to gun control on grounds of Jacksonian manhood
to his son-in-law Mike, aka “Meathead” (Rob Reiner), referencing Jacksonian film icons John Wayne, Gary Cooper, and Clint “Westwood.” This scene, which starts at 5:46 in the
video, is from Season 3, Episode 1, “Archie and the Editorial,” first shown on
September 16, 1972.
TV: Only by enforcing even tougher gun laws can the tide of violence and death be halted. Guns must go, before more of them go off.
Archie: Well that’s where you’re going buddy boy, off!
Meathead: Hey, what are you doing that for? I wanted to hear what he had to say there.
Archie: He’s a fairy like all them gun control guys.
Meathead: I’m for gun control.
Archie: Tell it to her, maybe she’ll get the marriage annulled.
Gloria: Daddy!
Meathead: Archie, what do guns have to do with maleness?
Archie: What do guns have to do with maleness? Duke Wayne buddy!
Meathead: What?
Archie: Clint Westwood there buddy.
Meathead: What are you talking about!?
Archie: Gary Cooper, Sergeant York. I could go on and on and on, but it’d do do no good because talking to you is like casting pearls into wine.
Meathead: Huh?
Archie: Tell that to old lady Heidgeger down the street no guns. She’d have been glad to have a rod when her two burglars bust in on her last week, huh Edith.
Meathead: Archie, how do you expect an 88-year old woman to go around carrying a gun.
Archie: I don’t know. She can carry it in her elastic stocking next to her very close friend. All I know is as an American it’s my right to pack a rod!
NRA Gun Control Arguments Predicted by “All in the Family” (Video). By Seth Abramovitch. The Hollywood Reporter, December 21, 2012.
All in the Family: Archie and the Editorial Part 1. LaughVids2, January 27, 2012. YouTube.
All in the Family. Archie and the Editorial Part 2. LaughVids2, January 27, 2012. YouTube. Complete episode in one video here.
Margaret Thatcher, The Class Warrior Who Set Britain Free. By Janet Daley.
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June 5, 2012. British police lead flag waving crowds lining the monarch’s route from the Houses of Parliament to Buckingham Palace to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in London. John MacDougall / AFP/Getty Images. What Thatcherism did was offer modern property-owning capitalism – with all the personal liberation that it implies – to the mass of the population.
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Margaret Thatcher: Britain was set free by this class warrior. By Janet Daley. The Telegraph, April 13, 2013.
Thatcher brought a dose of Jacksonian populism to elitist Britain. She sought to remake Britain in the image of Jacksonian America.
American politics has caught the British disease. By Janet Daley. The Telegraph, July 17, 2010.
Margaret Thatcher’s Revolution. By David Ignatius. Washington Post, April 8, 2013. Also at Real Clear Politics.
Thatcher and Entrenched Interests. By Robert W. Merry. The National Interest, April 11, 2013.
How Should We Rank Margaret Thatcher? By David Cannadine. New York Times, April 13, 2013.
Thatcher Put the “Great” Back in Great Britain. By Jack Kelly. Real Clear Politics, April 14, 2013.
Daley (Thatcher):
Everybody has his own candidate for the most important legacy of Margaret Thatcher’s time in office. Was it the reform of trade union power, the rescue of the economy from apparently terminal decline, or the release of industry from state ownership? Well, no, actually. I would make the case that while all of those things were tumultuous in their significance, they could all (God help us) be reversed. Some future government that was sufficiently benighted might legislate to remove the right of trade union members to vote on strike action. It might even seize the levers of economic activity and return vast areas of commercial life to the state.
But it would be humanly impossible to overturn the revolution in social attitudes that she brought about. And by social attitudes I mean, of course, attitudes to class. It is very difficult to explain to people under the age of 40 what this change has meant. The best way to encapsulate it is with a startling quote from the estimable Sir Jonathan Miller that has risen over this past week – like a grotesque apparition from the historic past – to remind us of what we once were like. The good doctor (as he then was) said that he hated Mrs Thatcher (as she then was) for her “odious gentility and sentimental, saccharine patriotism, catering to the worst elements of commuter idiocy.”
The greatest and most irreversible testimony to Thatcherism is that no one in public life (perhaps no one in his right mind) would today utter a statement of such shameless snobbery – such egregious, unvarnished hatred for that vast swath of the population who are now the object of every political leader’s admiration.
The “idiot commuters” whom Dr Miller loathed are none other than Ed Miliband’s “strivers” and David Cameron’s “people who work hard and want to get on.” Immediately before that, they were Gordon Brown’s “hard-working families” and even earlier – in the immediate wake of the Thatcher social revolution – they were the aspirational working classes whom Tony Blair had discovered were the lost Labour constituency.
But, as I say, it is hard to recall a time when public discourse was dominated by the unapologetic patrician elitism of public intellectuals who detested petit bourgeois virtues and particularly derided the sort of individual ambition that Thatcherism lauded. Somehow, there seemed to be no sense of absurdity in hearing people who espoused equality in one breath sounding like one of Jane Austen’s aristocrats ridiculing people whose money came from “trade” in the next.
There was a peculiar other-worldliness about this condescension that helped to undo it: a rather bizarre form of conceit which failed to recognise that even people you might have met and worked with could be part of that loathed army of idiots – or might, at least, regard it with affection and understanding.
At the time of Dr Miller’s widely quoted remarks in which he likened Thatcherism and its supporters to “typhoid”, a BBC television arts producer I knew who had grown up in a lower-middle-class family said: “Hey, that’s my mum and dad he’s talking about.” But presumably it never occurred to the Left-wing aristocracy that anyone in their own professional circle might himself have risen from the respectable working class or the truly accursed one just a notch above it. That would be because the idea of “rising” at all was faintly ridiculous and contemptible.
The very people who (most of the time) advocated educational opportunity and social freedom were driven to the most repugnant, frenzied abuse by, for example, the idea of working-class people being allowed to purchase the council houses they lived in, or being encouraged to start up businesses, or – especially this – moving right up and away from their class roots.
The romanticising of working-class life, with all its defeatism and passivity, was shocking to me when I first arrived here from the United States in the Sixties. This was paternalism at its least benign: a kind of sub-Marxist notion of class loyalty that ran deep in the Labour movement was used to bury people’s feet in the cultural concrete of their origins. It was not just risky or foolhardy to aspire to something more: it was positively wrong, a betrayal of your forebears.
Even more personally, the desire for self-improvement was a repudiation of your parents and neighbours. The Miliband “strivers” and the Cameron people “who work hard and want to get on” were not the heroes of pre‑Thatcher British politics. To Old Labour they were selfish class traitors. To the intellectual aristocracy, they were vulgar and ridiculous.
You may wonder why this vaguely feudal concept of social order came so naturally to those who surely must have thought of themselves as progressive. What struck me at the time was that Britain had somehow leapt straight from the 19th century into late Marxism. So the only acceptable advancement for working people could be through collective progress: they could move forward as a class, seizing political and economic power together, or they could stay where they were, nursing their shared grievances.
This was why “individualism” (or “selfish individualism”, as it was always known) had to be so comprehensively denounced. The achievements and successes of any one person were not just a pointless distraction: they actually robbed the proletariat of its potential for mass action. Separating out individuals for reward on the basis of merit or industriousness remains anathema to most trades unions, which is why they resist differentials of pay on the basis of results (“performance-related pay”).
What Thatcherism did was offer modern property-owning capitalism – with all the personal liberation that it implies – to the mass of the population. The vitriolic argument that began then about individual rights as opposed to collective ones is not finished. Nor has the critical question about wealth distribution been answered definitively: is it wrong that some people should be wealthier than others, even if virtually everybody has become wealthier than they were?
But the central radical idea of Thatcherism’s social philosophy would never be beaten back: everyone should have a right to progress as far from his beginnings as his talent and ambition can take him, and no one – not least the state or its agencies – should despise him for the attempt. In fact, it is one of the chief functions of government to do everything in its power to clear the obstacles to that progress, whether that involves dismantling the power of trades unions, reducing the cost of living or increasing the freedom to make private choices.
At the heart of this is respect: respect for the kind of ordinary life that Margaret Thatcher had known and that it would never have occurred to her to hold in contempt.
The Original Affluent Society. By Marshall Sahlins.
The Original Affluent Society. By Marshall Sahlins. Originally published in 1974. Reprinted in Marshall Sahlins, Culture in Practice: Selected Essays. New York: Zone Books, 2000. Also find it here and here.
The Human Motivational Complex: Evolutionary Theory and the Causes of Hunter-Gatherer Fighting. Part I. Part II. By Azar Gat. Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 73, Nos. 1 and 2 (January, April 2000).
The Human Motivational Complex: Evolutionary Theory and the Causes of Hunter-Gatherer Fighting. Part I. Part II. By Azar Gat. Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 73, Nos. 1 and 2 (January, April 2000).
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Margaret Thatcher Saved Britain From Socialism. By Mark Steyn.
Mrs. Thatcher’s Losing Victory. By Mark Steyn. National Review Online, April 12, 2013.
This lovefest for Margaret Thatcher spells trouble for David Cameron. By Jonathan Freedland. The Guardian, April 12, 2013.
Thatcher’s legacy is Britain’s isolation. By Anne-Marie Slaughter. Financial Times, April 12, 2013.
This lovefest for Margaret Thatcher spells trouble for David Cameron. By Jonathan Freedland. The Guardian, April 12, 2013.
Thatcher’s legacy is Britain’s isolation. By Anne-Marie Slaughter. Financial Times, April 12, 2013.
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