From an article in the New York Review of Books:In 1984, Thatcher watched TV footage of Kohn and Mitterrand visiting the site of the bloody World War I battle of Verdun.  The two men stood together, gazing at the field, holding hands, symbolically reconciling France and Germany.  "Wasn't it moving, she was privately asked afterwards?  'No, it was ( Read more... )

I am extremely skeptical of the notion that the individual whose ass occupies the president's chair makes much of a difference.  There are probably exceptions, and I am willing to consider evidence, but my null hypothesis is "no effect".  Political pressures overwhelmingly restrict what choices the president can make, and his sources of information ( Read more... )

It is not just movies (http://come-to-think.livejournal.com/5669.html) that engage my confabulation mechanism.  Casual researches have revealed that I was harboring utterly false versions of recent history:

Musical chairs in San Francisco: Harvey Milk was the mayor.  Dan White, the ( Read more... )

Reading:  Thieves in the Night, by Arthur Koestler (1946).  First read, 1957; reread partly for sentimental reasons, partly for perspective on the current Israel--Palestine mess ( Read more... )

Recent news item:

An Iranian strategic expert has warned that one of President Obama's daughters will be kidnapped and raped if America attacks Syria.

(The headline, in MailOnline, calls him a "diplomat".)  That reminded me of something that appeared in the New York Times Magazine while we were gearing up to drive Iraq out of Kuwait:News agencies ( Read more... )

Recent agitation reminded me that I had always wondered who it was that invented the bullying bacronym "USA PATRIOT ACT", with its snide insinuation that anyone who opposed or criticized it was unpatriotic. Sure enough, Google reveals the name of the "staffer" who did it --- and that he is now a lobbyist for the MPAA!  Clearly, an all-round yimakh- ( Read more... )

From The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl & C. M. Kornbluth (1952):

A team of designers went to work on an automatic [spacecraft] pilot.  When it was done it worked pretty well.  And weighed four and one half tons in spite of printed circuits and relays constructed under a microscope.

However, that book does contain, somewhere, the following timeless ( Read more... )

Frank Capra movie, 1940.  I forget where I saw it recommended.  A farcical satire on politics & religion, rather daring in some aspects ( Read more... )

I could go on for quite a while listing arithmetical statements that I believe, but I suppose it would be more exciting to mention things that I believe and most people don't ( Read more... )

In the Washington Post Weekly, 28se-04oc, there is an earnest 1-page article on how important racism is in South Carolina politics.  The Post has chosen to illustrate it with a photograph taken in a restaurant in Orangeburg, SC, of a white waitress (more precisely, a pink waitress with blond hair) serving two black customers (more precisely, two ( Read more... )