I’ve gotten many interesting claims on what Materazzi said to make Zidane headbutt him. Here are three, the first operatic, the second the most logical, the third perhaps most psychologically plausible.: 1. From Elmer Fudd: Text being spread thru the…
I’m no soccer nut, but this morning I frantically searched Yahoo news without satisfaction to learn what Marco Materazzi said to Zidane to generate the most important moment in the ’06 World Cup. Then two friends emailed me with the…
My report on a literary evening at Makor brought another demurral, on points large and small, from Triangle author Katharine Weber: I did not say “cramped,” but crammed. My mother being raised in a Protestant identity bubble by her Protestant…
A week or so back on Democracy Now, Amy Goodman brought together author Norman G. Finkelstein and AIPAC’s Josh Block to talk about the Gaza troubles. Block, the spokesman for the Israel lobby, made a point of flashing his credentials:…
Last night on the PBS NewsHour, David Brooks defended Sen. Joe Lieberman from attacks on the internet. Brooks is an astute and insightful writer, but he is too often indirect, and last night he abandoned any duty to be specific:…
Two years ago Wall Street Journal reporter Farnaz Fassihi blew our minds with a samizdat email from Baghdad, quickly circulated everywhere, showing it was impossible to live in a normal way in that city. Old news now. Today a Journal…
As stated earlier, July 4 is rough on the one of my dogs that hates fireworks. He gets anxious and trembles all the time, he follows us around. Only now July 4 is over and he continues to follow us…
A week or so back I did a snarky take on Laurel Snyder’s new book, Half-Life: Jew-ish Tales From Interfaith Homes and a reading she had at Makor , then walked away whistling. But after trying to comment on my…
The other day I got a copy of Stephen Walt’s 2005 book Taming American Power:The Global Response to U.S. Primacy and was surprised to read the section on the Israel lobby. It was nearly as forceful as the paper on…