The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Ramona's picture

    The Dark Sadness Claims Another Victim

    The news that comedian Robin Williams has succumbed to deep depression is sparking thousands of conversations on the airwaves and throughout the internet.  Once the shock is over, once the tributes and the memories and the RIPs have been delivered, the talk turns, as it always does when someone commits suicide, to what it was that could possibly make someone do such a thing. He had everything going for him and it still wasn’t enough. . .  Suicide is a selfish act. . .  A cowardly act. . . Look what he’s done to his family. . .

    Michael Maiello's picture

    The Long March To War

    I'm finding the current foreign policy narrative, as pushed by those who identify as liberal hawks, very disturbing.  The Obama administration is certainly not rushing to use U.S. ground forces but this is where drone strikes and aerial bombardment inevitably leads.  Our military interventions start with the low risk choices and then, as things progress, we start to hear about the "limits of air power," and "the limits of technology."  Before you know it, you're back to fighting an old fashioned war, the one human activity with, apparently, no limits.

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    Doctor Cleveland's picture

    Robin Williams and Making Live Comedy Live

    Robin Williams was funny, lightning fast, and a gifted improviser, but what really set him apart as a comic was that he let his audiences share the experience of what doing standup comedy feels like. He didn't do that explicitly. It probably can't be done explicitly. But he did it, maybe better than anyone else ever has. It was the core of his gift, because a great comedian is not merely funny. A great comedian creates a relationship with the audience, and the relationship Williams created with his live audiences was something fundamental and profound.

    Ramona's picture

    Charles Koch Schools Us on How to Keep His Family the Second Richest In The Country

    The gazillionaire Charles Koch, the Right Wing benefactor whose father was a co-founder of the John Birch Society,  the same Charles Koch who, along with his brother, David, works tirelessly against any sign of government interference when it comes to health care, public education, infrastructure, climate change, or  aiding the pitifully down and out, and who most generously funds any person, politician or party promising to fight along with them on the Kill the Government Before They Kill Us battleground--that very same Charles Koch has just written

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    Michael Maiello's picture

    The Intellectual Heft Behind Broken Windows

    The March 1982 Atlantic article called "Broken Windows" by George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson is a darned interesting artifact 32 years later.  It begins with an experiment with community policing and foot patrols in Newark, New Jersey in the mid-1970s.  We are, at that point, seeing the start of the use of technology in law enforcement and, of course, the start of globalization and the hollowing out of America's cities that resulted.

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    Doctor Cleveland's picture

    The Other Two Sides in Israel and Palestine

    It is not only hard to write about the bloodshed in Israel and Palestine without taking sides. It is impossible for most people to read about the violence in Israel and Palestine without taking sides. So the debate bogs down into questions of justification and self-defense and proportionality: that is, into the utterly useless question of whether Israel or Hamas is more in the wrong. It may well be that one side or the other is more justified, or more culpable. But since the answering that question will not prevent even a single death, the question is meaningless.

    Michael Maiello's picture

    It's Time For Bill de Blasio To Abandon "Broken Windows"

    Best I can tell, "broken windows" policing does sort of work to reduce crime rates, though it probably also gets more credit than it should.  The theory behind it is that you can reduce crime by reducing "disorder."  There's a logic to this that can't be dismissed.  If millions of people living in New York City really internalize the idea that the city cannot be governed, then the city will be harder to govern.

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    Ramona's picture

    George Will's Backhanded Tribute to Sherrod Brown

    I don't know what to make of George Will lately.  It's as if George Will the Good has been working his way out of George Will the Bad's closet, escaping for a few minutes of sunlight before his evil twin GWTB discovers him and throws him back in.

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    Michael Maiello's picture

    Why Cutting Benefits Helps Nobody

    One of the ancillary benefits of the success of Michael Wolrach's Unreasonable Men is that when websites like The National Memo choose to excerpt from it I get to know websites like The National Memo.

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    Michael Maiello's picture

    The Cause Of Poverty

    I can't say this enough, especially with regards to this where David Brooks tells us from up high that character defects cause poverty.  See, I know a lot of wealthy people who have character defects.  I know a lot of poor saintly types.  Most people fall somewhat in between on both matters of wealth and character.  But, here's the truth: we don't live in a world where people necessarily get what they deserve.

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