Criticizing the latest Hayao Miyazaki movie feels evil, like passing up cupcakes made by children to sup on puppies. Miyazaki is, after all, the grand master of animation, gifted with an unparalleled and deeply humanistic imagination, the creator of rapturous worlds and complex heroines that Walt Disney could only dream of. So why the grumbles? […]
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Cut and Run
I’m enormously disturbed to hear that the GOP is looking for an exit strategy on Social Security. This sort of abandonment of Social Security could let it fall to AARP. Indeed, a reverse domino effect could take place, as liberal pressure groups sense weakness, judge the administration a paper tiger unwilling to take electoral casualties, […]
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I Am Done With Finals
And that’s a fact. Ask me about Rawls! Go on, ask me!* * Questions will not be answered.
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Europe 1, American Right 0
Ranting like yours against capitalism is so over, a vaguely neoconservative friend and writer of learned essays chided me last winter as I ranted, indeed, against proposals to privatize Social Security. Recently, another writer-acquaintance, David Brooks, chided French and Dutch voters for rebuffing higher living standards (more jobs and consumer goods) by refusing to ratify […]
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Divided and Falling
The dissident unions of the AFL-CIO are meeting in Washington today to announce that they are building a halfway house. The Change to Win Coalition — and boy, is that ever a provisional-sounding and utterly clunky name — will begin life neither entirely within nor without the AFL-CIO. One of its founders, the Service Employees […]
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A Universe Next Door
Somewhere, in a parallel universe, real leaders in a country very much like our own are dealing with real problems. Imagine what America might be like if our top officials were addressing the genuine challenges that confront us. Domestically, the president might have responded to the September 11 attacks by calling for equality of sacrifice, […]
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The Reality-Based War on Terror
This post of Kathryn-Jean Lopez’s has been nagging at me for the last few days. It’s a response to a New York Times op-ed by Peter Bergen, which argues, in short, that the widespread worry over madrassas is really misplaced — those who’ve attacked us haven’t been poorly educated automatons with no skills save massive […]
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Me and Osama, United Against Global Warming
Ricky West is usually one of the good guys. Republican, but one of the good guys. So what’s he talking about here? “I don’t hate America, I hate what the right-wing/Bush has done to America” – two words: Shut. Up. If you hate what your political opponents have done to America, then that means that […]
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Death to the Editorial!
I agree with just about every word in Tim Noah’s argument to end the editorial page. Take the damn thing out back and shoot it, it’s utterly useless. As a rhetorical form, editorials are dull, cautious, plodding, poorly-written, and choking on their own perceived authority. They rarely add anything to the paper, instead stealing space […]
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08 Fantasies
EJ Dionne’s column today strikes me as pretty silly. A McCain/Jeb ticket, though probably attractive to a few folks out there, isn’t really worth 800 words gaming it out. Not in a world where, you know, there are real things that are actually happening. And conceptual critique aside, Jeb Bush doesn’t lift McCain’s overriding weakness: […]
