In any case, having met John Dean on a couple of occasions (he and Mo liked to hang around Hollywood back in the day) I doubt he’s up to speed on his Saul Bellow. What I don’t doubt is his pathetic need to cling desperately to the public eye, which in part must have motivated his dopey grandstanding in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee today. Comparing Watergate to the NSA controversy is so absurd it’s almost silly. The former was about a domestic political break-in, the latter about national defense in a time of war. But I guess some people, like the junior Senator from my state Ms. Boxer, prefer to skip over such niceties. She’s one of the two Senators, the other being Harkin the corrupt, who are backing Feingold’s even more grandstanding censure gambit. That was the empty charade behind the empty Dean testimony. [[I'm not going to tell the people you voted for Boxer once upon a time.-ed. More than once.]

UPDATE: I see the Dean is having more “influence” than I thought.

39 Comments

Blogging will be low hereabouts because I’m up in Seattle/Bainbridge Island again for the weekend (blogging from the terrific Bainbridge Island ferry free WiFi), but I notice that Condi Rice has “admitted” lots of mistakes in Iraq (although she still thinks over-throwing Saddam was the right thing to do). These days, she is to me the most interesting person in public life. Probably the smartest too. More Condi, please.

1 Comment

This one is not for Hollywood – it’s for the people. And it seems like a pretty good deal – a Camry that does (according to the latest figures) 40 city/ 38 highway Not bad and an okay price too. Meanwhile, asleep at the wheel and lagging behind are the folks in Detroit. They used to innovate back in the old days and I’m rooting for them to do it again. [Why not get the Pistons involved? They're winners.-ed. Rasheed???... I was thinking more Steve Jobs.]

28 Comments

As a former President of the PEN Center USA (western US branch of PEN), I am calling for that organization to stand up against Borders/Waldenbooks. The chain has “chosen not to carry the April-May issue of the magazine Free Inquiry due to the Muhammad cartoons contained therein.” As the leading writers’ organization involved in the defense of free expression (cf. Salman Rushdie), PEN should be in the forefront of the fight against this kind of de facto censorship by bookstore chains.

50 Comments

Does the watered-down Security Council pronouncement on Iran mean anything? Would have it meant anything if it hadn’t been watered-down?

9 Comments

Your new status symbol is here – a $55,000 hybrid that does 0 to 60 in 5.2 seconds. [Hey, but you get a tax credit for energy efficiency.-ed. Right. I forgot.]

UPDATE: Were keys to this car here? If so, someone got a deal.

MORE: “Bobos in Priuses” by Judd Magilnick. [Talk is cheap. I bet your next car is a hybrid.-ed. You're probably right.]

9 Comments

Despite all my visits to France and my past, er, personal connections with French people, I had no idea, until these recent demonstrations, that their first jobs out of school came with a no-firing clause. We competitive, voracious Anglo-Saxons just wouldn’t dream of such a thing. It wouldn’t cross our minds. So I was thinking this morning, while reading the NYT coverage, just how alien the French view is from ours. Take a look at this employment issue from another angle: Can you imagine wanting or even considering keeping your first job out of college for life? How extraordinarily dull. How fundamentally, well, conservative in a social sense. Most of us automatically view our first jobs as stepping stones (to a variety of destinations). But this is what all those kids and trade unionists are demonstrating about. For all their Bohemian bravura, the French are often the most conventional of people in their lifestyles and aspirations. Some people brand this a form of socialism, but I believe there is something more psychologically traditionalist or conformist in this. The socialism emerges from this essential conservatism, not the other way around. But having read this conclusion of the NYT’s article, I should shut up:

On Sunday, the defense minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie, blamed the English-language press for being anti-French. “We have to get out of this situation,” she told French journalists. “This is bad for France, its economy. People who don’t like us, particularly the Anglo-Saxon newspapers, are using this to denigrate our image.”

Not to mention Anglo-Saxon blogs.

49 Comments

Maybe you already do, because Ehud Olmert’s family sounds weirdly like my family – and a lot of others I know in NY and California. Newsday gave us the gossip yesterday, which Allison Kaplan Sommer says nobody seems to make a big deal about in Israel:

Olmert’s wife, Aliza, is a well-known artist and screenwriter. She supports Peace Now, a group that fiercely opposes Israel’s security barrier and Kadima’s [Olmert's party] plans to complete it. It also promotes the division of Jerusalem for a Palestinian state and Israel’s withdrawal to its 1967 borders.

The Olmerts’ daughter Danna is a university lecturer of literature and a self-professed lesbian who lives openly with her partner in Tel Aviv. She is a member of Machsom Watch, a group of Israeli women who monitor checkpoints for human rights abuses and often confront Israeli soldiers on behalf of Palestinians. Her older sister, Michal, holds a master’s degree in psychology and runs creative thinking workshops. Married, she lives in Tel Aviv and is known to share her siblings’ leftist political leanings, but is not as outspoken.

The Olmerts’ son Shaul completed his military service, signed a petition of Yesh G’vul, a group of Israeli Defense Force soldiers who refuse to serve in the occupied territories, and now lives in New York.

Their younger son, Ariel, dodged military service altogether and is studying French literature at the Sorbonne in Paris. Both sons have retained their Israeli citizenship and are eligible to vote.

So how did they vote? With their politics or with pop? And more importantly, is the younger son demonstrating in Paris? (just kidding – but who knows?) Olmert himself, however, seems to have a relatively sanguine attitude toward the whole thing:”

There is a complex and, I think, fascinating dialogue between my children and me,” he said in a recent interview with the Hebrew daily Yediot Ahronot newspaper. “They have influenced me, and I am proud of it. I would like to think that I have also influenced them.”

Hmmm….seems like a potential Simpsons episode there.

3 Comments

I see some are predicting a weak Israeli government and new elections in 2006. I am not. We’ll see who is right soon enough. The rest is the blablabla of pundits. [Who? Me?-ed. No. Me.]

MEANWHILE: Joel Greenburg of the Chicago Tribune wrote the following: The outcome stood in contrast to recent Palestinian elections in which the militant group Hamas, which refuses to recognize or negotiate with Israel, won a landslide victory. Hello, Joel. It was not a landslide victory at all, as most commentators now realize. Hamas was able to capitalize on a split in Fatah. Please read the papers.

1 Comment

… as it is with most forms of yellow or yellowish journalism (yes, I read it all the time anyway ) is that their headlines mislead. Tonight’s, on the Israeli election, reads: Israel’s Olmert declares election victory; plans ‘final borders’… But the article says: Olmert said that he hoped that it would still be possible to set a border through negotiations with the Palestinians, but that Israel would act alone if peace efforts remained stalled.

“We are ready to compromise, to give up parts of the beloved Land of Israel … and evacuate, under great pain, Jews living there, in order to create the conditions that will enable you to fulfil your dream and live alongside us,” he said in words addressed to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

In other words, Olmert reached out to Abbas on Kadima’s victory. How the Palestinians respond remains to be seen.

5 Comments