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Monday, Sep 27, 2004
whine and deign
billmon frets about the commercialization of blogs on the la times op-ed page. what a short strange trip its been.
Saturday, Sep 25, 2004
blog on the run
fear and laptops on the campaign trail
face down
two-faced meme is top down from the dnc. does that make certain members of the blogosphere officially sanctioned propagandists, or was there a confluence of interests and attitudes that encouraged its rapid proliferation?
Friday, Sep 24, 2004
may contain sports-like substance
for my legions of sports-challenged readers, heres one of many stories about seattle mariners rightfielder ichiro suzukis efforts to break the single season hit record set by george sisler in 1920. he needs ten to tie with ten games to play.
have you seen my hoodie?
"What we know as "the Abu Ghraib scandal" has in fact become an increasingly complex story about how Americans in Afghanistan and Cuba and Iraq came to commit acts, with the apparent approval of the highest officials, that clearly constitute torture. The images themselves, however, having helped force open the door to broader questions of how the Bush administration has treated prisoners in the War on Terror, are now helping as well to block that door; for the images, by virtue of their inherent grotesque power, strongly encourage the view that "acts of brutality and purposeless sadism," which clearly did occur, lay at the heart of Abu Ghraib. Even public officials charged with investigating the scandal—these are the fourth and fifth full reports on the matter, with at least four more to come—at the same time seek to contain it by promoting the view that Abu Ghraib in its essence was about individual misbehavior and sadism: "Animal House on the night shift," as former secretary of defense James Schlesinger characterized it, even as his own report showed in detail that it was a great deal more."
bubble boys and girls
"This made Philip Gourevitch a poor candidate to cover a presidential campaign. Hanging out with a pack of reporters, where everyone is chasing the same story (but there really is no story)-- that's alien to his experience, not the sort of thing he does at all. On the campaign trail it's always you, and the press, and the thing: nonstop. And your arrival is always anticipated. You are never coming into a situation as first witness for the public, which had been a Gourevitch method.
On contract at the New Yorker, he needed a new assignment, something fresh to do. Maybe another foreign beat? he thought. Bingo. Approached that way, politics had possibilities. The presidential campaign as a foreign country visited by one of its own citizens."
politinker
politinfo.com - political portal
house party
maison neuve - literary magazine alert
voting blights
feel like revisiting the 2000 election?
sour smell of success
i bitched about this on some comment thread after reading ezra kleins neo-lib apologia for his initial support of the war on iraq. ultimately all those fresh faced voices of reason and moderation just couldnt bear the emotional strain of siding with the dirty smelly hippies. (i blame cartman.) michael berube adds some perspective.