Category: Politics (explicit)

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Sun Roth

Today’s edition of the New York Sun’s Arts+ section continues to defend its title as Official Newspaper of Gil Roth (and several other Roths, as seen in #s 1 and 2):

  1. Roth Time Redux, discussing the impact of Dieter Roth,
  2. a new exhibition on Philip Guston, with a shout-out to Philip Roth,
  3. MoMA’s screening of Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West,
  4. Daphne Merkin reviewing a book on the history of crazy-ass women, and
  5. and an absolute smackdown of Benny Morris’ version of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Even better: my coworkers believe the Sun must be “too conservative,” so they avoid reading it in the lunchroom, leaving me a pristine copy! However, since the owner of our company canceled our subscription to the NYTimes, which he believes is “too liberal,” the only other choices are the Wall Street Journal and the NYPost. . .

(BONUS! Today’s Sun also has a John Stossel op-ed piece on why the FAA’s inspections of airlines (and governmental inspections in general) are useless at best.)

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Peace process: solved!

In a Washington Post op-ed piece this morning, Mahmoud al-Zahar, the founder of Hamas, explains what the Israelis need to do for peace:

A “peace process” with Palestinians cannot take even its first tiny step until Israel first withdraws to the borders of 1967; dismantles all settlements; removes all soldiers from Gaza and the West Bank; repudiates its illegal annexation of Jerusalem; releases all prisoners; and ends its blockade of our international borders, our coastline and our airspace permanently. This would provide the starting point for just negotiations and would lay the groundwork for the return of millions of refugees. Given what we have lost, it is the only basis by which we can start to be whole again.

Note that this would constitute the starting point for negotiations. At least al-Zahar makes a concession that the Holocaust actually happened, remarking, “Sixty-five years ago, the courageous Jews of the Warsaw ghetto rose in defense of their people.”

His big threat seems to be “demographics”; that is, that the Palestinians will out-breed the Israelis. But that notion seems to be undercut when he points out how many of his own kids and sons-in-law have been blown up.

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Head, meet wall

John Crudele, the very good business columnist at the NYPost, regularly warns us to take the Labor Department’s monthly employment figures with a grain of salt; the birth/death model they employ can fudge a lot of employment stats.

The numbers that came out today are pretty depressing — a loss of 80,000 jobs, and a revised estimate of increased job losses in January and February — but Crudele points out that the April figures (to be released May 2) tend to be twice as “generous” with the number of new jobs that Labor thinks were created, but can’t prove. So we’ll probably see uninformed commentary about how the economy is turning around, about one month from today.

This NYTimes article on the unemployment report isn’t as entertaining as Crudele’s writing, although it does point out that Hillary Clinton “referred to herself as a ‘Paulette Revere’ whose calls for financial assistance have gone unheeded.”

After some harrowing stories of industrial regions that have seen tremendous job losses, the article concludes with this anecdote:

The downturn has even come to San Francisco, where highly trained workers with elite degrees flock to work for some of the world’s biggest technology companies. CNet Networks, the online media giant, laid off 10 percent of its staff — about 120 workers — this year in an effort to increase profitability and its share price. Yahoo, the search engine company, said it would cut its work force by 1,000.

Until recently, Parul Vora, 28, was earning a six-figure salary as part of an elite research team at Yahoo. Ms. Vora, who has a master’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, lost her job in early February.

“I had never been laid off and never imagined being laid off,” Ms. Vora said. “I was sad personally and professionally.”

But Ms. Vora has better prospects than most. She said she has already been wooed by several potential employers.

“There are a lot of jobs out there, but I’m pretty picky,” Ms. Vora said. “My biggest worry is finding a new job I like.”

Seriously: that’s the end of the article. See, the times are tough for everyone, even a 28-year-old MIT post-grad who lives in the most expensive city in the country and who counts as unemployed, but is lining up job offers and doesn’t know which one to take.

I guess they’re writing to their demographic or something.

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Cajun style!

I was going to post this column by James Carville just so you could read his defense of his “Judas” reference to Bill Richardson’s endorsement of Obama. I mean, it’s a pretty entertaining read:

Heck, I give myself some credit for managing to get the Clinton and Obama campaigns to agree on something — that neither wanted to be associated with my remarks.

But then I got to the end and was struck by this phrase:

Most of the stuff I’ve ever said is pretty insignificant and by in large has been said off the cuff and without much thought to the potential consequences.

“By in large”? I always thought it was “by and large.” This conversation would seem to confirm that (well, since it’s derived from nautical terminology, they propose “by and larrrrrrrge,” but still), but since my just deserts mistake a few months ago, I’m gunshy. Maybe this is just how you say “by and large” . . . Cajun style!

Any insight on this?

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Eliot P. Ness

Last week, I mentioned NY Gov. Spitzer’s creative use of campaign funds in a post about why I hate writing about politics. This afternoon, Spitzer got nailed in a federal investigation of a high-class prostitution ring (with lead reporting again by St. John’s College alum Danny Hakim!).

I consider prostitution a victimless crime, unless the John is ugly or fat or something. In fact, I’m only writing about this so I can write a post with the title of Howard Stern’s great character from The Gay Untouchables.

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Wanna know why I gave up writing about politics & politicians?

Because it’s all incredibly depressing bullshit. Need examples?

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A Canadian buddy of mine was freaked out that Obama and Clinton/B both spouted off about trashing NAFTA recently. I explained to him, “They don’t mean it; they’re just pandering to voters in Ohio. If either wins the election, they’ll repudiate all that based on ‘the realities of the office’ or something.”

Lo and behold, in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, there’s a short article on how both candidates are assiduously avoiding any mention of NAFTA in their speeches in Texas, where the economy is doing just fine, there’s job growth, and border towns are benefiting from the free trade pact.
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NYTimes writer (and St. John’s College alum!) Danny Hakim writes about how Gov. Eliot Spitzer is circumventing his own limits on political donations so that he can get enough funds together to knock out the Republican majority in the state senate:

The governor could not have been more emphatic when he initially announced his policy. On Nov. 30, 2006, before even taking office, Mr. Spitzer held a news conference to unveil a number of reforms he intended to undertake, with the $10,000 limit the most eye-opening proposal — well below the $55,900 that statewide candidates can accept.

“I think this is unprecedented,” the governor said at the news conference. “I do not know of another instance where others have acted unilaterally.”

[. . .] “The reason we do this [limit donations to the governor, but redirect much higher donations to the governor-controlled party fund], and the reason it’s a priority, is so that we can achieve a majority in the Senate to accomplish the necessary reforms,” Mr. Toohey said. “We’re never going to get the kinds of reforms that people want on a range of issues if we don’t have a Democratic Senate.”

Oh, and the other reason they do this is because the investigations into Spitzer’s unethical behavior will also be harder to shut down if his party doesn’t control the state senate.