Uncategorized

31
Jan

Journalist wounded, Limbaugh gloats

Via Sullivan, here is Rush Limbaugh on the critical wounding of ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff: This is a news organization which participated in the happy count-up to a thousand soldier deaths, 1,500 soldier deaths, 2,000 soldier deaths, that didn’t make it real. This makes it real, Bob Woodruff and the ABC cameraman being hurt. This makes it real…

31
Jan

Engage Journal

The first issue of the Engage Journal is up. From the inaugural editorial by David Seymour and David Hirsh: Paradoxically, many on the left presents the Israel/Palestine debate in terms reminiscent of George W. Bush’s now notorious comment that, “if you’re not with us, you’re against us”. One is forced to choose between one national narrative and the other –

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27
Jan

Truth in labeling updates

1. Judeosphere reports on the flap over Mazin Qumsiyeh’s article in the Davos forum’s Global Agenda magazine calling for a total boycott of Israel. The Davos forum has renounced the article and chalked it up to an editorial oversight. What this NY Times account misses — and what Judeosphere does not — is that Qumsiyeh is the founder of Al

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24
Jan

The Daily

The Daily Show’s two headlines on the UK-Russia espionage story, involving electronic equipment hidden in a fake rock: “Sly Stone” & “War on a Rock.” Jon Stewart’s comment on Pelosi, Reid and other Dems signing an “Honest Leadership” pledge for the cameras: “Apparently that ‘oath of office’ thing didn’t take.”

23
Jan

Human Rights 2006

Marc Cooper has a strong post about Human Rights Watch’s 2006 World Report. The report highlights Bush administration abuses, but also makes the case against Castro and Hugo Chavez, Harry Belafonte’s pal. In the comments, Michael Balter makes an excellent point: Those of us on the left have a particular responsibility to criticize the human rights violations of regimes like

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22
Jan

Disc of the week

I’ve been doing cartwheels over Hip-Hop Essentials 1979-1991, Volume Five (Tommy Boy). Why? Because it leads off with “That’s the Joint” by the Funky 4 + 1 and “Freedom” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. I taped these two singles off the radio (WKTU-FM) when I was 12, and I played them over and over and over again. With

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18
Jan

The future of music…

or whatever…To quote ZZ Top: “She got legs / She knows how use ’em…” [Hat tip: Noah Baerman]

16
Jan

Writing and truth

The cover of the NYT Week in Review concerns James Frey’s memoir A Million Little Pieces, embellished to the point of fraudulence. Randy Kennedy explores the relativist public response to the fakery, noting that suspicion of the memoir genre stretches back at least to Montaigne. Indeed, in the final chapter of Fascinating Rhythm: Reading Jazz in American Writing (Princeton U.

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