The Media
Glenn Greenwald and Egypt, continued
A quick follow-up on Glenn Greenwald’s blundering comments about the anti-Hillary protests in Egypt: Indeed, the tomato-throwing protesters were anti-Islamist, not anti-Mubarak. In fact, this report indicates the protesters were riled up by bogus claims regarding the Obama administration’s Egypt policy — claims spouted by hysterical right-wingers in the U.S. including Michele Bachmann and Frank Gaffney. So Greenwald, rushing to validate
Glenn Greenwald thinks he understands Egypt
Regarding the protests against Hillary Clinton that occurred in Alexandria, Egypt, Glenn Greenwald tweeted this: And then this: As if the Arab world is one undifferentiated mass of anger at the U.S. In fact, this report (hat tip David Toube via FB) on the demonstrations includes the following line:
Gilad Atzmon to play music, foment hate in New York
In my inbox is a notice from World Village-Harmonia Mundi: Saxophonist Gilad Atzmon “makes a rare appearance in New York City beginning May 5th and is available for interviews.” Oddly I see no gig schedule listed. In any case I won’t be interviewing Atzmon during his visit, because I’m too busy interviewing musicians who don’t claim that the Jews provoked
Nir Rosen, major war monger
After critiquing Nir Rosen’s shoddy excuse-making for terrorism in January 2009, I paid only slight attention to his work. But on the occasions when I stumbled onto his Twitter feed, I actually had to stop and wonder whether someone had hacked his account. The opinions were so extreme, so loutish, so flagrantly unprofessional, so obviously unbecoming of a Fellow at
Castro’s latest
Via Jack Shafer’s Twitter feed, this AP story on Fidel Castro’s decision to fill three of the eight scant pages in the party-controlled newspaper Granma with nonsense from 9/11 Truther and Bilderberg conspiracy theorist Daniel Estulin. AP writer Will Weissert does a nice job detailing how Estulin’s work actually draws on the thinking (rather, “thinking”) of the extremist right. I’m
Announcing the launch of JJA News
Today the Jazz Journalists Association launched JJA News, its new official web publication, which takes the place of the quarterly Jazz Notes. I’m excited to be staying on as editor, so check out my introductory statement, and sign up at the column on the right to follow JJA News via Twitter, RSS and so forth.
Arguing the World
Dissent has launched a new blog, Arguing the World — a new outpost of social democracy on the web. Read it here and read it often.
Obama’s Cantor smackdown
Conventional wisdom remains that our president is a wimp, spineless, etc., which flies in the face of jujitsu moments like this (hat tip Marc Cooper): And that’s not to deny that Obama, in his way, makes use of political theater, which is what that health care summit was. But taking the opportunity to call out Republicans on their nonsense for