tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84176002012-02-16T12:54:44.438-05:00My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.comBlogger5031100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-13088795424107774562012-01-12T13:34:00.001-05:002012-01-12T13:36:47.325-05:00

This time I disagree with David Brooks (NYT, 1/10/12): there are no liberals left in the USA because government, the center-left's most favored instrument, has failed to provide widely accepted solutions for what ails the country.It should be unnecessary to point out that the US system of governance lies at the intersection of hard capitalism and democracy. The people elect representatives to

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-63261120962807264842011-10-23T10:35:00.004-04:002011-10-23T11:00:30.372-04:00

It is not often that I get really surprised. Yesterday, walking Broadway, I ran into a gentleman that at some time in the past I could talk to, but who has become intractable in more ways that one. He also posted a comment to this blog with a very surprising argument: that the Democratic ticket in his year’s election for City Council could not win a single seat because it was committed to

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-4505520665539463452011-10-21T14:37:00.003-04:002011-10-21T15:01:36.093-04:00

Three important events happened this week in Saratoga Springs. First, the traditional League of Women Voters Candidate Forum at the Saratoga High School Auditorium brought together all the candidates for City Council in this year’s election. The unopposed candidates, John Franck, Commissioner of Accounts, Joanne Yepsen, Saratoga Springs Supervisor, and Rep. Matt Veitch, the second Saratoga

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-91576197907715629992011-10-06T21:52:00.003-04:002011-10-06T22:00:17.798-04:00

In the USA we do not take elections very seriously. I mean, we like the spectacle, we like the suspense, we like the winners and losers part of it. But not their significance in the democratic process.You will by now be bristling: “yes, the elections are the core of the choice, of the government by the people, elections are what keeps us free.” But that is only the conventional lip service. In

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-80411217681802118412011-04-22T20:48:00.001-04:002011-04-22T20:48:50.054-04:00

Decades ago the European countries, facing the sudden windfall of oil production of their very own and within easy reach -in the North Sea- made the choice of pricing it high, tagging on hefty taxes to put a high price on energy consumption. In the long run the increased revenue on the one hand allowed the governments to invest heavily in costly public ground transportation: high speed trains,

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-28976427620898426032011-02-25T10:23:00.001-05:002011-02-25T10:30:41.768-05:00

What is going on in Wisconsin? The media are compressing the reasons for this conflict into an anti-union tinged fight to bring the much-reviled public employees to heel, and that is the view that the conservative right would like us to have.But the conflict is actually a much wider one and fits the Republican ever present agenda of privatizing and, yes, union-busting. I have still to see any

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-39249268754678539282011-02-21T09:52:00.006-05:002011-02-21T10:30:05.006-05:00

Last Tuesday’s City Council meeting brought us a long-awaited unsurprising declaration by His Honor Scott Johnson, that the City was filing a notice of appeal with Judge Nolan’s Court.The rationale for such a move was very much in tune with Republican thinking: to keep the pitchforks at bay.The Mayor proclaimed himself the citizen’s Defender, not only of the city of Saratoga Springs (where

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-11082687757840463652011-02-14T21:59:00.001-05:002011-02-14T22:06:15.476-05:00

Tonight I watched Jeopardy. Why am I even saying that? Jeopardy, the popular and very durable classic of game shows, was surely watched by many, and some did so with a deep-seated feeling of guilt, as a secret, unmentionable addiction.But today was different. The venue was in New York state, on an IBM campus; the players were two old veterans, the highest prize winners of Jeopardy’s history. The

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-47132748504283377632011-02-12T12:38:00.002-05:002011-02-12T12:41:20.818-05:00

Finally, somebody said it. I do not feel alone any more:"While millions of ordinary Americans are struggling with unemployment and declining standards of living, the levers of real power have been all but completely commandeered by the financial and corporate elite. It doesn’t really matter what ordinary people want. The wealthy call the tune, and the politicians dance."read more at: http://

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-63190319818037539192011-01-27T02:35:00.000-05:002011-01-27T02:36:18.202-05:00

As an outer space explorer I descended on 2011 Spain expecting a country, as described in the US press, devastated by crisis, tottering in financial morass, beset by hordes of unemployed beggars in the streets.Arriving in Barajas Airport, a messy collection of the super-modern and 1960s constructivism, nothing much felt changed from a year ago: the lights were dimmed to save energy, but the

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-88590045879156314092011-01-24T13:00:00.004-05:002011-01-25T02:38:33.464-05:00

In Madrid, Spain, twenty five years ago, Dr. Enrique Tierno Galván died on January 19th. He was a Marxist scholar, university professor, sociologue, lawyer and writer. During the last years of the Franco regime he organized a political party, the Popular Socialist Party (or PSP) whose membership almost exclusively consisted of lawyers, civil servants and some businesspeople, all living in one

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-51416904469450035732011-01-24T03:14:00.001-05:002011-01-25T03:03:14.423-05:00

Our local jewel, the Saratoga Film Forum recently screened the controversial film “Waiting for Superman”, that has been playing to ecstatic audiences all over the country. Authored by Davis Guggenheim who directed “An inconvenient truth”, in which Al Gore displays his findings in relation to man-made climatological and environmental change, this film tackles the insufficiencies of our education

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-86652638537338745652011-01-01T09:57:00.000-05:002011-01-01T09:58:46.327-05:00

You, and I, have woken up today and are living in a year with a new label: 2011.As the saying goes, the past is gone, the future is a mystery, we are left with only the present.But we still believe that the future will become present, and that we can shape it by our actions and decisions. Hence the long lists of New Year resolutions, mostly forgotten come January 15th. The most common resolution

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-60917178209047406862010-12-21T08:56:00.001-05:002010-12-21T08:58:23.117-05:00

We are fortunate to have in Saratoga Springs quite a few resources to enrich our lives. The Film Forum is one of them; formed sixteen years ago by a group of enthusiastic friends dismayed by the poverty of films on offer at the malls around the City, and by the lack of a downtown venue for movies, they started renting films from national distributors on 35 mm stock, and discussing what they had

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-52090626481317293272010-12-15T12:29:00.001-05:002010-12-15T12:31:08.210-05:00

Just because you can do something, does not mean that you should. Just being secret does not make anything interesting.I have been trying for some weeks to get my head around the Wikileaks thing, and all the furore being whipped up. The way that I see it, nothing that I have read is either unknown, intuited or not boring. The only titillation flowed from the fact that all this verbiage was

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-60564045811942497392010-12-10T10:31:00.001-05:002010-12-10T10:33:12.124-05:00

Say “carbon pricing” or “cap and trade” and you are likely to be run over with invective in this country.But that does not mean that the world is standing still. Carbon, in the form of CO2, is priced at present at Euros 22 per ton, and trending upwards. I know of a Spanish company, with an office in Panama, that sells small co-generation energy plants, and smart garbage dumps to developing South

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-13533519040704166222010-11-21T10:01:00.001-05:002010-11-21T10:03:57.526-05:00

Black Friday is fast approaching, and the mood in Saratoga Springs is cautiously optimistic. Yesterday I briefly chatted with Marc Strauss, of Mabou memory, while strolling through the Downtown Marketplace, the closest thing to a department store in the city. He owns the place, and the largest retailer in it, Pangea. Marc commented that business was picking up, and if the next six weeks held up

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-41953431289426819412010-11-19T09:20:00.000-05:002010-11-19T09:21:45.783-05:00

You would think that budgets are about money. Really?. Last Sunday the New York Times put online a new game. It asked the players to become politicians and slash the deficit, enumerating their preferred places to cut or increase budgets by filling in little squares, grouped in chunks of 100 billion dollars.This game invites us common mortals to step into the minefield of our convictions. Now we

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-50356432761684998012009-12-18T06:00:00.008-05:002009-12-19T05:55:04.342-05:00

Opera was an Italian invention but very soon in the 17th Century an Italian, Jean-Baptiste Lully, was composing for the French monarch Louis XIV full theatrical spectacles, “tragedies en musique”.No wonder that Paris has not one, but two great Opera houses, three if you count the Opera Comique near the Boulevard des Italiens. The most famous one is the big building at the end of the Hausmannian

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-57018362865397355272009-12-03T10:53:00.008-05:002009-12-03T12:32:21.772-05:00

When you arrive in the very busy Cologne Main Station (Hauptbahnhof), on the banks of the Rhine and next to the huge cathedral (Dom), as you come down the stairs and walk to the main concourse, because it is Christmas time, you will see a diorama , depicting a nativity scene (or crèche in French and Krippe in German). In all loving detail it represents a scene during Christmas 1944, a scene of

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-60175329197565614682009-11-26T08:12:00.003-05:002009-11-26T08:28:14.828-05:00

I will now begin to share with you some the different spectacles that we have enjoyed during our stay in Paris. I have been repeatedly asked: “And what will you do for three months in Paris?”, predicting long stretches of boredom once the Tour Eiffel and the Bateaux Mouche and the Moulin Rouge have been exhausted, the last room of the Louvre or the Musée d’Orsay explored (is that even possible?!)

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-55371366158714182912009-11-23T08:24:00.010-05:002009-11-23T08:52:18.166-05:00

Street marketsHow do you shop for food in Paris? Mostly you walk the streets. Yes, there are the large supermarkets (grandes surfaces), like Carrefour, but they are limited to the outlying areas, where real estate prices and zonings make it possible to put together large venues. The problem, since the inception of the city, is how to distribute the day to day necessities to the consumer level.

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-70776643975249587992009-11-18T04:38:00.008-05:002009-11-18T06:02:36.415-05:00

In Cologne, Germany, the 12th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day of 11th month of the year marks the beginning of Carnival season, that will end on Ash Wednesday 2010. But the 11th minute is still devoted to remembering the end of the First World War of 1914 to 1918.Nowhere more so than in Paris. For the first time a German Chancellor, Ms. Angela Merkel did attend a ceremony under the Arc de

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-31669021150167418902009-11-16T14:36:00.008-05:002009-11-16T14:58:51.460-05:00

France-Méteo was set to rain on our Sunday, so we decided to pack the umbrellas and set off to Deauville, the paramount summer resort on the French side of the Channel.At Bastille métro station the quais were unpeopled, the trains almost totally empty. At Châtelet we changed to the driverless train on line 14th towards Saint Lazare station. This line was inaugurated in its full length in 2007,

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-78395555090722189182009-11-09T06:05:00.014-05:002009-11-09T15:40:29.461-05:00

Don’t you believe that the French do not like the USA! They may object to some things that we do, but they do love some of our stuff.On Saturday, November 7th, quite deliberately, we walked up (or is it down?) the rue de Rivoli, to the Louvre. Now that the weather has turned to chilly and grey, the masses of tourists have thinned and some neighborhoods have become available again. As we

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-46526531380295481692009-10-30T06:59:00.008-04:002009-10-30T08:32:59.621-04:00

This chronicle is dedicated specially to Leila Whittemore, our guide and inspiration on this trip to Rome.Rome? On Seville, Camilo José Cela wrote: ...es una gran señora con la cara pringosa de literatura." (a great lady with a sticky face from all the literature). Rome is this wonderfully grand lady, albeit overripe, enveloped in picturesquely chaotic flowing robes, whom we would like scented

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-63004839940035661962009-10-20T12:01:00.010-04:002009-10-20T13:03:57.021-04:00

What constitutes the charm of Paris? Which are the elements that have made it the tourist Mecca, the “must-see” capital of the Western world?It is an ancient city, on a site inhabited continuously for over two thousand years; but other world cities, not only in Europe, have been occupied for even longer periods. Paris is built along and around a river, but this is rather common when you are

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-51128284048131699582009-10-06T05:28:00.005-04:002009-10-06T06:05:10.650-04:00

Since the Frères Lumière held their first public exhibition of the “cinématographe” to a paying audience on December 28th 1905, in the basement of the Grand Café at the Boulevard des Capucines, Paris has been the city of movies. You may think that Los Angeles or Hollywood deserves that name, but where else than in Paris can you find 500 films shown per week in 365 venues? Where else can you

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-68341090503430718592009-09-25T11:50:00.002-04:002009-09-25T17:41:21.877-04:00

The French, if you have forgotten, take four or five weeks of paid vacations, generally during the month of August. When we arrived on the 19th the city was half uninhabited, many restaurants and shops shuttered and exhibiting the sign asking the reader to “Patientez” (Be patient) and come back on the 30th or the 10th of September.At that time the fifth season of Paris began. Apart from the usual

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-51142348663129012972009-09-22T07:54:00.000-04:002009-09-22T07:54:04.356-04:00

We have been in Paris a month now. Hard to believe!. Slowly we have embedded ourselves into the soft texture of the quartier. The blond lady at the news stand, walking back from the neighboring café, coffee cup in hand (a cup on a saucer, not a mug), greets me with a smile and a “Bonjour, Monsieur”. She assumes her post, framed by colorful magazine covers, shelves cluttered with newspapers and

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-41344284580121273102009-09-16T12:28:00.005-04:002009-09-16T13:08:50.168-04:00

Herzog and deMeuronLet me say to begin with that I am a big city creature. I grew up roaming the streets of a rather ramshackle Madrid, still creaking and straining to overcome the miseries and deficiencies of the Spanish Civil War. Kids of my age, after school, used to test our manhood by jumping up on the bumpers of electric trolleys as they rolled by and jumping off when policemen came in

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-52218594666874618472009-09-11T07:20:00.011-04:002009-09-12T03:41:32.760-04:00

Yesterday Linda and I decided, almost on the spur of the moment, to traipse to Reims. I wanted to see the cathedral, the purest of Gothic edifices; some even call it the most perfect Gothic cathedral ever built. Clovis, the first acknowledged king of France, was baptized there, bringing the Frankish kingdom into the realm of Christendom. Most Kings of France have been consecrated there, the last

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-40074588594933134642009-09-04T15:09:00.004-04:002009-09-05T11:50:30.169-04:00

We all know, because we have been told many times, that the USA is the most electronically advanced country in the world, has the largest number of personal computers in the world, and that nowhere is the broadband penetration larger: 60% apparently. We have just read of a computer whiz who has been sued by Goldman Sachs for stealing another esoteric algorithm that enables the banks to trade

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-18362096651778135692009-09-01T11:50:00.001-04:002009-09-01T11:53:16.348-04:00

Roger Cohen’s column in yesterday’s New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/opinion/31iht-edcohen.html?_r=1) beautifully said much of what I had been mulling for some days. To wit: I posit that the French have a different attitude toward food than Americans, even Michael Pollan. Let me say first that I hesitate to use the term “American” in the sense of covering all of the inhabitants

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-69082372926423448492009-08-31T04:30:00.000-04:002009-08-31T04:30:56.119-04:00

August 31, 2009OP-ED COLUMNISTMissing Richard NixonBy PAUL KRUGMANMany of the retrospectives on Ted Kennedy’s life mention his regret that he didn’t accept Richard Nixon’s offer of a bipartisan health care deal. The moral some commentators take from that regret is that today’s health care reformers should do what Mr. Kennedy balked at doing back then, and reach out to the other side.But it’s a

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-88823175814089192652009-08-29T04:15:00.000-04:002009-08-29T04:15:52.139-04:00

Things that I do not need and will not miss!Grande lattesSupersizingThose plastic chairs that they sell at Home Depot for $6 that bend this way and that, and that some outdoors terraces use for their customers to sit down in. Don’t see them here, and good riddance.Lots of ice in your drinks. Get them cold from the refrigerator, but don’t dilute them.More to come.I will have to write about small

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-75278547528782601712009-08-27T16:56:00.003-04:002009-08-28T15:39:37.155-04:00

In the two narrow streets where our third floor apartment overlooks a corner the most reverberating sounds are the scooter engines flitting by day and night, and the clickety -clack of shoe heels against the pavement, until the last neighbors have retired home. It is summer and as people like to stay up and enjoy the cooler evenings their conversations flow out of the open windows, a

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-80953751013889250042009-08-23T16:52:00.001-04:002009-08-23T16:55:55.808-04:00

We have been in Paris since Wednesday morning. On arriving, sticky and disheveled, the luggage hall was packed with pasty people in funny clothes in various degrees of sunburn. Air Madagascar’s Airbus had just disgorged its load of French vacationers, still disbelieving that they were back home. The baggage conveyor along the wall was slowly spewing forth their belongings, and we stood four deep

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-39656283821368751822009-08-21T05:20:00.002-04:002009-08-21T05:24:00.482-04:00

As planned, and with a friend’s kind help, we loaded the five pieces of luggage resulting from weeks of negotiation into a van and set off for Albany International and Paris. Summer clothing, winter clothing, two laptops, a suit and a coat in a garment bag, our pills, our snacks assured our survival for the next four months in the wilds of Europe.Five hours later, in mid-afternoon, we had made it

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-2110859192786047152009-07-18T08:13:00.000-04:002009-07-18T08:14:38.904-04:00

London Review of Books * LRB * 9 July 2009 * Rory Stewart more detail iconThe Irresistible IllusionRory StewartWe are accustomed to seeing Afghans through bars, or smeared windows, or the sight of a rifle: turbaned men carrying rockets, praying in unison, or lying in pools of blood; boys squabbling in an empty swimming-pool; women in burn wards, or begging in burqas. Kabul is a South

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-21885353509261077592009-07-16T22:54:00.000-04:002009-07-16T22:55:04.472-04:00

Congressman Murphy is wavering on his previous commitment to support a public health insurance option as an integral part of health care reform. The “Blue Dog” caucus, comprising some 40 Democratic House members, has sent Speaker Pelosi a letter. Their goal is to slow down the momentum towards reforming our health care system. In theory, these 40 Democrats [joining with 100% of the Republican

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GO BACKPRINT THIS PAGEANNALS OF MEDICINETHE COST CONUNDRUMWhat a Texas town can teach us about health care.by Atul GawandeJUNE 1, 2009It is spring in McAllen, Texas. The morning sun is warm. The streets are lined with palm trees and pickup trucks. McAllen is in Hidalgo County, which has the lowest household income in the country, but it’s a border town, and a thriving foreign-trade zone has kept

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-64865527539380790322009-06-22T13:13:00.002-04:002009-06-22T13:18:28.096-04:00

Saratoga Arts and the Saratoga Springs Film Forum hosted the local premiere of “Regular Guy”, a film directed by Leigh Rathner, written by David Kalish, and produced by Jason Ward. The Saturday showing was packed with friends and family of the production team and the actors: a true Saratoga Springs community event.Films have taken up in the 21st century the role the novel played during the 19th

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-4342633907172695562009-06-17T16:00:00.003-04:002009-06-17T21:59:08.283-04:00

The most far-flung of my correspondents tells of difficulties in obtaining a good cup of joe in Accra. Nescafé is king in a coffee producing country like Ghana, which neighbors Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, and Equatorial Guinea, BIG coffee producers all of them. But then I also heard that in Uganda, whose export trade largely rests in coffee beans, the laborers picking the pods in the fields often

My Opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07620585306104913792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8417600.post-61117208550205755572008-04-20T19:00:00.003-04:002008-04-20T19:03:43.495-04:00

Tomdispatch.com is for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of our post-9/11 world and a clear sense of how our imperial globe actually works. Read more about the site's founder and editor Tom Engelhardt and his guest authors. Click here to e-mail Tom.posted April 20, 2008 3:55 pmTomgram: 12 Reasons to Get Out of Iraq12 Answers to Questions No One Is Bothering to Ask about IraqBy Tom

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Dick Cavett - Opinion - New York Times BlogMemo to Petraeus & Crocker: More Laughs, PleaseOnce again it is time to bid aloha to that sober team of mirthless entertainers, Petraeus & Crocker.It’s hard to imagine where you could find another pair of such sleep-inducing performers.I can’t look at Petraeus — his uniform ornamented like a Christmas tree with honors, medals and ribbons — without

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April 7, 2008OP-ED COLUMNISTGrains Gone WildBy PAUL KRUGMANThese days you hear a lot about the world financial crisis. But there’s another world crisis under way — and it’s hurting a lot more people.I’m talking about the food crisis. Over the past few years the prices of wheat, corn, rice and other basic foodstuffs have doubled or tripled, with much of the increase taking place just in the last

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March 25, 2008OP-ED COLUMNISTThe Long DefeatBy DAVID BROOKSHillary Clinton may not realize it yet, but she’s just endured one of the worst weeks of her campaign.First, Barack Obama weathered the Rev. Jeremiah Wright affair without serious damage to his nomination prospects. Obama still holds a tiny lead among Democrats nationally in the Gallup tracking poll, just as he did before this whole

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March 26, 2008OP-ED CONTRIBUTORThe Maverick and the MediaBy NEAL GABLERAmagansett, N.Y.IT is certainly no secret that Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is a darling of the news media. Reporters routinely attach “maverick,” “straight talker” and “patriot” to him like Homeric epithets. Chris Matthews of MSNBC has even called the press “McCain’s base” — a comment

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Skip navigationLondon Review of Books * HOME * SUBSCRIBE * LOG IN * CONTACTS * SEARCH * LRB * 20 March 2008 * Jonathan Raban more detail icon * monitor icon screen layout * mail icon tell a friendDiaryJonathan Raban I want a hero: an uncommon want When every year and month sends forth a new one, Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant, The age

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March 18, 2008TRANSCRIPTBarack Obama’s Speech on RaceThe following is the text as prepared for delivery of Senator Barack Obama’s speech on race in Philadelphia, as provided by his presidential campaign.“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words

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The Draconian Becomes the Norm

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It’s the OilJim HoltIraq is ‘unwinnable’, a ‘quagmire’, a ‘fiasco’: so goes the received opinion. But there is good reason to think that, from the Bush-Cheney perspective, it is none of these things. Indeed, the US may be ‘stuck’ precisely where Bush et al want it to be, which is why there is no ‘exit strategy’.Iraq has 115 billion barrels of known oil reserves. That is more than five times the

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After a short hiatus (couple of months), due to general discouragement on witnessing the Democrats' flabby performance, I rejoin today the ranks of bloggers with the intention of writing somethings myself, not relying only on my favorite Krugman (and others) to provide material.It so happens that in my beautiful little town of Saratoga Springs we are also fighting for the soul of the Democratic

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October 19, 2007Op-Ed ColumnistDeath of the MachineBy PAUL KRUGMAN“There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money, and I can’t remember what the second one is.” So declared Mark Hanna, the great Gilded Age political boss.Karl Rove has often described Hanna as his role model. And predictions that Mr. Rove and his disciples would succeed in creating a permanent Republican

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Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)http://www.fair.orgExtra! May/June 2007Asleep at the WheelPress ignores congressional OK for martial lawBy Robert KubeyOn October 17, 2006, when George W. Bush signed the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2007—a $538 billion military spending bill—he enacted into law a section called “Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies

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May 13, 2007EditorialHunger and Food StampsIf you think people do not go hungry in America, you’re wrong. At last count in 2005, 35 million low-income Americans — about a third of them children — lived in households that cannot consistently afford enough to eat. Since 2005, the situation has most likely become worse. Last year, real wages for low-income workers were still below 2001 levels. This

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SFGate Home Business Sports Entertainment TravelClassifieds Jobs Real Estate Cars SFGate Web by Sign In | RegisterOpen ForumWhy there was no exit planLewis Seiler, Dan HamburgMonday, April 30, 2007Printable VersionEmail This ArticleMain Opinion PageChronicle Sunday InsightChronicle CampaignsSF Chronicle SubmissionsLetters to the EditorOpen ForumSunday InsightThere are people in

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February 1, 2007Empire v. Democracy: Why Nemesis Is at Our Doorby Chalmers Johnson and Tom EngelhardtTomDispatchThe dream of the Bush administration – eternal global domination abroad with no other superpower or bloc of powers on the military horizon and a Republican Party dominant at home for at least a generation – long ago evaporated in Iraq. A midterm election and subsequent devastating

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a project of the Nation Institutecompiled and edited by Tom Engelhardt Tomgram: The Theater of the Imperially AbsurdThis post can be found at http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=183573[Tomdispatch recommendations: International human rights lawyer Scott Horton has long had a remarkably informative private newsletter, "No Comment," which is now lodged at the Harper's Magazine website where

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Four Years Later in Iraq Where are the Laptop Bombardiers Now? By ALEXANDER COCKBURN Pick almost any date on the calendar and it'll turn out that the US either started a war, ended a war, perpetrated a massacre or sent its UN Ambassador into the Security Council to declare to issue an ultimatum. It's like driving across the American West. "Historic marker, 1 mile", the sign says. A minute later

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The Once and Future Republic of VermontBy Ian Baldwin and Frank BryanSunday, April 1, 2007; B01BURLINGTON, Vt.The winds of secession are blowing in the Green Mountain State.Vermont was once an independent republic, and it can be one again. We think the time to make that happen is now. Over the past 50 years, the U.S. government has grown too big, too corrupt and too aggressive toward the world,

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Op-Ed: Emerging Republican Minority By PAUL KRUGMANRemember how the 2004 election was supposed to have demonstrated, once and for all, that conservatism was the future of American politics? I do: early in 2005, some colleagues in the news media urged me, in effect, to give up. “The election settled some things,” I was told. But at this point 2004 looks like an aberration, an election won with

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NEWS | OPINIONS | SPORTS | ARTS & LIVING | Discussions | Photos & Video | City Guide | CLASSIFIEDS | JOBS | CARS | REAL ESTATEMy National Security Letter Gag OrderFriday, March 23, 2007; A17It is the policy of The Washington Post not to publish anonymous pieces. In this case, an exception has been made because the author -- who would have preferred to be named -- is legally prohibited from

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NEWS | OPINIONS | SPORTS | ARTS & LIVING | Discussions | Photos & Video | City Guide | CLASSIFIEDS | JOBS | CARS | REAL ESTATEThe Great Mideast PretendersBy Jackson DiehlMonday, March 19, 2007; A15For years cynical statesmen have played a game of make-believe with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: From podiums in Europe or at the United Nations, they announce that their top priority henceforth

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BLOG | Posted 02/21/2007 @ 8:51pmCheney: Thanks for Cutting and RunningVice President Dick Cheney, keeping as far from federal prosecutors as possible these days, arrived in Japan Wednesday to officially thank that country for supporting the Bush-Cheney administration's invasion and occupation of Iraq.What made the trip absurd was that Cheney was campaigning for a war that he wanted, plotted and

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US intelligence on Iran does not stand up, say Vienna sources | Iran | Guardian Unlimited

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NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNNWashington's $8 Billion ShadowMega-contractors such as Halliburton and Bechtel supply the government with brawn. But the biggest, most powerful of the "body shops"—SAIC, which employs 44,000 people and took in $8 billion last year—sells brainpower, including a lot of the "expertise" behind the Iraq war.By Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele 02/20/07 "Vanity Fair" -

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February 16, 2007Op-Ed ColumnistThe Health Care RacketBy PAUL KRUGMANIs the health insurance business a racket? Yes, literally — or so say two New York hospitals, which have filed a racketeering lawsuit against UnitedHealth Group and several of its affiliates.I don’t know how the case will turn out. But whatever happens in court, the lawsuit illustrates perfectly the dysfunctional nature of our

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Don't Do It, Mr. PresidentHon. Ron Paul Of TexasBefore the U.S. House of Representatives 02/06/0702/14/07 "ICH" -- -- It’s a bad idea. There’s no need for it. There’s great danger in doing it. America is against it, and Congress should be. The United Nations is against it. The Russians, the Chinese, the Indians, and the Pakistanis are against it. The whole world is against it. Our allies are

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It's not enough to say we should listen to childrenIf we take anything from this devastating report, it must be just how poorly young people's rights are being served in the UK Libby BrooksThursday February 15, 2007The Guardian Al Aynsley-Green has got it right. There is a crisis at the heart of our society. The children's commissioner was responding to the publication yesterday of Unicef's

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February 15, 2007Op-Ed ColumnistNo Apology NeededBy DAVID BROOKSFar be it from me to get in the middle of a liberal purge, but would anybody mind if I pointed out that the calls for Hillary Clinton to apologize for her support of the Iraq war are almost entirely bogus?I mean, have the people calling for her apology actually read the speeches she delivered before the war? Have they read her

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February 5, 2007Op-Ed ColumnistThe Green-Zoning of AmericaBy PAUL KRUGMANOne of the best of the many recent books about the Iraq debacle is Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s “Imperial Life in the Emerald City.” The book tells a tale of hopes squandered in the name of politicization and privatization: key jobs in Baghdad’s Green Zone were assigned on the basis of loyalty rather than know-how, while key

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February 2, 2007Op-Ed ColumnistMissing Molly IvinsBy PAUL KRUGMANMolly Ivins, the Texas columnist, died of breast cancer on Wednesday. I first met her more than three years ago, when our book tours crossed. She was, as she wrote, “a card-carrying member of The Great Liberal Backlash of 2003, one of the half-dozen or so writers now schlepping around the country promoting books that do not speak

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The neocons have learned nothing from five years of catastropheTheir zealous advocacy of the invasion of Iraq may have been a disaster, but now they want to do it all over again - in Iran Francis FukuyamaWednesday January 31, 2007The Guardian The United States today spends approximately as much as the rest of the world combined on its military establishment. So it is worth pondering why it is

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Please use this link to sign into the virtual stream of protest. One million signatures are the target for today:http://pol.moveon.org/virtualmarch/?rc=iraq_moveon_bloggers

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January 27, 2007Op-Ed ContributorAt Ease, Mr. PresidentBy GARRY WILLSEvanston, Ill.WE hear constantly now about “our commander in chief.” The word has become a synonym for “president.” It is said that we “elect a commander in chief.” It is asked whether this or that candidate is “worthy to be our commander in chief.”But the president is not our commander in chief. He certainly is not mine. I am

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%u2018Get Organized Now%u2019 Month? Maybe in the Red States - New York Times

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January 27, 2007EditorialThe Bait-and-Switch White HouseWe often wonder whether there is a limit to the Bush administration’s obsession with secrecy, its assault on the rule of law, its disdain for the powers of Congress, its willingness to con the public and its refusal to heed expert advice or recognize facts on the ground. Events of the past week suggest the answer is no.In his State of the

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US twists civilian arms to fill Fortress BaghdadBy Guy Dinmore in WashingtonPublished: January 7 2007 19:28 | Last updated: January 7 2007 19:28At the heart of George W. Bush’s “new way forward” – which the president is expected to announce on Wednesday and involve substantial troop reinforcements – is the plan already under way to expand the US civilian presence across Iraq and complete the

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January 5, 2007Op-Ed ColumnistFirst, Do Less HarmBy PAUL KRUGMANUniversal health care, much as we need it, won’t happen until there’s a change of management in the White House. In the meantime, however, Congress can take an important step toward making our health care system less wasteful, by fixing the Medicare Middleman Multiplication Act of 2003.Officially, of course, it was the Medicare

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Robert Fisk: A dictator created then destroyed by AmericaPublished: 30 December 2006Saddam to the gallows. It was an easy equation. Who could be more deserving of that last walk to the scaffold - that crack of the neck at the end of a rope - than the Beast of Baghdad, the Hitler of the Tigris, the man who murdered untold hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis while spraying chemical weapons

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December 25, 2006Op-Ed ColumnistHelping the Poor, the British WayBy PAUL KRUGMANIt’s the season for charitable giving. And far too many Americans, particularly children, need that charity.Scenes of a devastated New Orleans reminded us that many of our fellow citizens remain poor, four decades after L.B.J. declared war on poverty. But I’m not sure whether people understand how little progress we’

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It's still about oil in IraqA centerpiece of the Iraq Study Group's report is its advocacy for securing foreign companies' long-term access to Iraqi oil fields.By Antonia JuhaszANTONIA JUHASZ is a visiting scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and author of "The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time."December 8, 2006WHILE THE Bush administration, the media and nearly all

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November 3, 2006Op-Ed ColumnistAs Bechtel GoesBy PAUL KRUGMANBechtel, the giant engineering company, is leaving Iraq. Its mission — to rebuild power, water and sewage plants — wasn’t accomplished: Baghdad received less than six hours a day of electricity last month, and much of Iraq’s population lives with untreated sewage and without clean water. But Bechtel, having received $2.3 billion of

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HOME | SUBSCRIBE | LOGIN | CONTACTS | SEARCH | SITE MAPLRB | Vol. 28 No. 21 dated 2 November 2006 | Ed Harrimanreturn to screen layout tell a friendThe Least Accountable Regime in the Middle EastEd HarrimanUS Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction| Link: http://www.sigir.milUS Government Accountability Office| Link: http://www.gao.govUS Congressional Research Service| Link: http://

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COMMENTALTERNATIVE REALITIESby George PackerIssue of 2006-10-30Posted 2006-10-23When the National Security Council met to discuss Iraq earlier this month, in Washington, the sense of urgency was palpable. The director of national intelligence described the deterioration o security in Baghdad and Basra; the Iraqi Army was near collapse, he said, and another explosion of sectarian violence was

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October 20, 2006MOVIE REVIEW | 'FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS'A Ghastly Conflagration, a Tormented AftermathBy MANOHLA DARGISIt seems hard to believe there is anything left to say about World War II that has not already been stated and restated, chewed, digested and spat out for your consideration and that of the Oscar voters. And yet here, at age 76, is Clint Eastwood saying something new and vital about

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October 23, 2006Op-Ed ColumnistDon’t Make NiceBy PAUL KRUGMANNow that the Democrats are strongly favored to capture at least one house of Congress, they’re getting a lot of unsolicited advice, with many people urging them to walk and talk softly if they win.I hope the Democrats don’t follow this advice — because it’s bad for their party and, more important, bad for the country. In the long run,

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October 6, 2006OP-ED CONTRIBUTORThe War Against WagesBy PAUL KRUGMANShould we be cheering over the fact that the Dow Jones Industrial Average has finally set a new record? No. The Dow is doing well largely because American employers are waging a successful war against wages. Economic growth since early 2000, when the Dow reached its previous peak, hasn’t been exceptional. But after-tax

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October 7, 2006EDITORIALKicked While DownIn a blow to labor unions, the National Labor Relations Board recently expanded the pool of workers exempted from union membership. Specifically, the labor board found that registered nurses who assigned others to some shifts or tasks were supervisors, and thus not eligible to join unions. It was a bad decision, not only because of the specifics of the

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Borrowing During the Bush Years - Deeper and Deeper - New York TimesEditorialDeeper and DeeperThere is fresh evidence, if any more were needed, that excessive borrowing during the Bush years will make the nation poorer.For most of the past five and a half years, interest rates have been low, allowing the government to borrow more and more — to cut taxes while fighting two expensive wars — without

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Bush seeks immunity for violating War Crimes Act

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Insurance Horror Stories - New York TimesSeptember 22, 2006Op-Ed ColumnistInsurance Horror StoriesBy PAUL KRUGMAN“When Steve and Leslie Shaeffer’s daughter, Selah, was diagnosed at age 4 with a potentially fatal tumor in her jaw, they figured their health insurance would cover the bulk of her treatment costs.” But “shortly after Selah’s medical bills hit $20,000, Blue Cross stopped covering them

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The New York Review of Books: Cheney: The Fatal Touch

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Click here to return to the browser-optimized version of this page.This article can be found on the web at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060911/featherstoneMean or Green?by LIZA FEATHERSTONE[from the September 11, 2006 issue]A laughing baby is covered in baby food. He's making a gushy mess, as babies do, but having a grand time. A magic word reassures us--before we've had a chance to worry--that

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Click here to return to the browser-optimized version of this page.This article can be found on the web at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060911/melloHard Laborby FELICIA MELLO[from the September 11, 2006 issue]The Grimmway packing plant in Arvin, California, a drab farmworker town fifteen miles southeast of Bakersfield, is where carrots go to be reborn. After months of being coaxed and weeded in

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August 25, 2006WeaponsInquiry Opened Into Israeli Use of U.S. BombsBy DAVID S. CLOUDWASHINGTON, Aug. 24 — The State Department is investigating whether Israel’s use of American-made cluster bombs in southern Lebanon violated secret agreements with the United States that restrict when it can employ such weapons, two officials said.The investigation by the department’s Office of Defense Trade

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August 21, 2006Op-Ed ColumnistTax Farmers, Mercenaries and ViceroysBy PAUL KRUGMANYesterday The New York Times reported that the Internal Revenue Service would outsource collection of unpaid back taxes to private debt collectors, who would receive a share of the proceeds.It’s an awful idea. Privatizing tax collection will cost far more than hiring additional I.R.S. agents, raise less revenue and

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or this: shiver shiver WATCHING LEBANONby SEYMOUR M. HERSHWashington’s interests in Israel’s war.Issue of 2006-08-21Posted 2006-08-14In the days after Hezbollah crossed from Lebanon into Israel, on July 12th, to kidnap two soldiers, triggering an Israeli air attack on Lebanon and a full-scale war, the Bush Administration seemed strangely passive. “It’s a moment of clarification,” President George

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