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

    Hope

    By Barth on Sat, 02/21/2009 - 2:52pm |
    This is the last weekend of the winter, at least the way I see it. It is the last weekend that will pass without a Red Sox game to occupy some of the time, and to accompany me while battling...
    acanuck's picture

    Kerry visits Gaza, shuns House delegation

    By acanuck on Fri, 02/20/2009 - 6:23pm |
    The actual headline was "Kerry visits Gaza, shuns Hamas." But nobody expected him to meet up with Ismail Haniyeh, did they? What's more puzzling is the elaborate Kabuki that saw the chair of the Senate foreign relations committee touring Gaza on...
    Richard Day's picture

    Arthur of the Roundish Table (Ch-XXIII)

    By Richard Day on Fri, 02/20/2009 - 10:20am |
    Sir Moshe arose with his normal aches and pains. He was to make an appointment at the Room of the Roundish Table where there was to be a discussion of the border issues up north at Hadrian's Wall and the...
    Richard Day's picture

    The Farmers Daughter vs. Mr. Jefferson Smith

    By Richard Day on Thu, 02/19/2009 - 12:19pm |
    Ah, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. A movie about the American Spirit. The importance of Truth, Justice & the American Way. A look at politics from the perspective of a nine year old boy living with upper middle class parents...
    Richard Day's picture

    The Egalitarian Web

    By Richard Day on Wed, 02/18/2009 - 7:15pm |
    There's a mighty wind ablowinAnd its blowin you and me                                From:  A Mighty WindThese are the best of times on the Web. And I want to discuss what may be a change in the offing.I first started playing on this...
    Richard Day's picture

    Arthur of the Roundish Table (Ch-XXII)

    By Richard Day on Wed, 02/18/2009 - 10:27am |
    Gawain and the Moor proceeded west thanks to the quick thinking of Senor Eduardo. Well quicker thinking than the two blue bloods anyway. There was a mystery about the west.Everyone knows that east is east and west is west. And...
    Michael Maiello's picture

    Getting Weird At The Cafe

    By Michael Maiello on Tue, 02/17/2009 - 11:19pm |

    Sorry if bringing Cafe complaints here is a little off-putting but the current discussion of the Reagan book "Tear Down This Myth" has really taken an odd turn when two Reaganites joined the fray.  The worst of them is Stephen Knott, a professor at the Naval War college who believes that: Reagan had nothing to do with Iran-Contra and that congressional oversight into Iran-Contra weakened our intelligence services to the point that they helped pave the way for 9/11.  He didn't say all that in his posts but I did a little research.

    amike's picture

    Economics: A Lesson from the Puritans.

    By amike on Tue, 02/17/2009 - 7:28pm |
    A while back, I made a remark in response to someone's post something to the effect that President Obama's Economic Council suffers from a plethora of economists, and that other branches of the Academy could make valuable contributions, geographers, philosophers,...
    Richard Day's picture

    Twas the Night Before Doomsday

    By Richard Day on Tue, 02/17/2009 - 11:21am |
    AN ODE TO Old NickTwas the night before doomsdayWhen all through the martsNot a damn thing was stirringNot even the shopping cartsMortgages had been bundled byTheft merchants without careIn hopes that someone elseWould get caught holding scaredThere were almost three...
    Richard Day's picture

    Pajama Man; and Mornin' Joke

    By Richard Day on Mon, 02/16/2009 - 7:26pm |
    I'm writin me a blogI'm the pajama manI'm writin' me a blog todayFor we're all in the mood for a good essayAnd everyone's readin all nightOh Its nine o'clock on a SaturdayThe regular bloggers start loggin' inThere's an old man...
    amike's picture

    NPR: Another Hackle Management Crisis

    By amike on Mon, 02/16/2009 - 2:00pm |
    I hadn't planned to start the week with another rant about NPR...I really hadn't.  But now I'm sitting trying to think of another reason aside from inertia to renew my membership.  Divorcing myself from Public Radio will be painful to...
    Richard Day's picture

    Arthur of the Roundish Table (Ch-XXI)

    By Richard Day on Mon, 02/16/2009 - 12:01pm |
    Senor Eduardo was in a pensive mood. He was always exhilarated by the quest, by the hunt. With Sir Palidan he had found the best partner. Palidan had already fired one of Senor's caretakers for negligence. The best horse in...
    Richard Day's picture

    Lucy, You've Got Some Splainin' to do

    By Richard Day on Sun, 02/15/2009 - 5:54pm |
    Here we ago again, Daily Beast summarizing the NYT: Could the familiar story of the Iraq war's early bungled reconstruction effort get any worse? Yes, it could. The military is now investigating its own senior officers, who are suspected of...
    wws's picture

    Shared Creativity: Just For Fun

    By wws on Sun, 02/15/2009 - 12:55pm |
    I hereby challenge the wordsmiths of TPM to practice for the annual "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" competition, sponsored by the English Department of San Jose State University that "recognizes (and rewards) the worst examples of  'dark and...
    Richard Day's picture

    Arthur of the Roundish Table (Ch-XX)

    By Richard Day on Sun, 02/15/2009 - 12:31pm |
    Lancelot and Palidan were proceeding east having ditched their previous dates at the inn.  Eduardo began neighing again.  His laugh became more and more uproarious until Palidan was having trouble staying on the saddle.  All right, all right.  Everybody makes...
    wws's picture

    Shared Housing

    By wws on Sun, 02/15/2009 - 11:29am |
    2) Housing. As Vance Packard said a long time ago in his book, NATION OF STRANGERS, we've lost the cohesion and mutual support we had as a society when people stayed put, sharing houses or living across the street from family...
    wws's picture

    Job Sharing

    By wws on Sun, 02/15/2009 - 10:29am |
    Last week my wry wit TPM Cafe editor, Boyd Reed, gave me a Friday deadline for converting a long-winded comment I made on Aunt Sam's blog into three separate blogs on the concept of sharing  -- which is, in my...
    acanuck's picture

    Welcome to Canada, Mr. President: a quiz

    By acanuck on Sat, 02/14/2009 - 10:40pm |

    Next Thursday, President Obama will make his first foreign visit since taking office. It will be to Ottawa, resuming a tradition that George W. broke by visiting Mexico first. Obama's visit is billed as a bare-bones, working meeting -- a mere five hours, no overnight stay or joint address to Parliament. No chance for mass adulation.

    But we're glad he's coming anyway. To mark the occasion, here's a trivia quiz about presidential visits and general U.S.-Canada relations. Try to answer without peeking at the answers; sorry if they're so jeezly long.

    quinn esq's picture

    Ultraviolet (Light My Way.)

    By quinn esq on Sat, 02/14/2009 - 6:43pm |
    Tetrachromatic Vision.Birds can see in the ultraviolet.Red, green, blue... and ultraviolet. "Tetrachromatic" vision.Whereas we can only see three. Our brains, our words, our beliefs are all hard-wired to the idea that what we see... is what is real. If we can't...
    Richard Day's picture

    OUTSOURCING: Ceding Governmental Responsibility

    By Richard Day on Sat, 02/14/2009 - 4:57pm |
    I came across this at The Daily Beast yesterday:Hillary Transue, 17, of Wilkes-Barre, PA, knew something was wrong when she was sentenced to three months in juvenile detention for making fun of her assistant principal on MySpace in 2007. "I...

    Rec'd reading: The China Price, by Alexandra Harney

    By AmericanDreamer on Sat, 02/14/2009 - 2:54pm |
    I'd like to see this book get as widespread attention as possible.  It is an engagingly reported look at working conditions in the south China industrial factories, which appears to be balanced and should help to ground discussion about our and other countries' policies...
    Barth's picture

    Presidents on Presidents Day

    By Barth on Sat, 02/14/2009 - 2:10pm |
    It's been so long since we had a President with an appreciation of what this country---this nation---means, and how important our history is to what we are today, that every time he speaks seems to be an astounding event. The...
    Richard Day's picture

    Arthur of the Roundish Table (Ch-XIX)

    By Richard Day on Sat, 02/14/2009 - 12:14pm |
    The Mystery Continues; Episode IIIThe Feast of St. ValentineWell why are we meeting in the French Count's room, inquired Iseult.Because I can no longer rent the anteroom, or the ante anteroom for that matter. It is getting so one cannot...
    amike's picture

    What does Wall Street do?

    By amike on Sat, 02/14/2009 - 11:54am |
    Mainly, it lies there. a pile of asphalt showing its age. It runs from Broadway to South Street--a skinny little thing, hardly worth calling a thoroughfare. It has a church at one end, sort of--but it can't really claim it,...

    The Want of the “Why.”

    By JoanOfArc on Sat, 02/14/2009 - 10:36am |

    One over-thinking girl’s thoughts as to why she wishes dating was more like auditioning.

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