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

    How The Benghazi Committee Led Me To Hillary

    By Ramona on Sun, 11/01/2015 - 9:04am | Politics

    Hi Dagbloggers:  If some of this looks familiar it's because I built this blog around a comment I made  a few days ago.  My blogs won't be all Hillary all the time, I promise!

     
    Last week, on the morning of the latest in a long line of House Select Committee hearings on Benghazi, I was finishing up a blog post in which I hoped during the next few months Progressives/Liberals would all just get along.  At that point, on that morning, I thought I was still neutral about the two front-runners.  (Joe Biden has announced he's not running and Martin O'Malley, the only other viable candidate, is so far behind he's almost invisible. It's early yet, but unless someone else shows up, it  going to be either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.)
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    Politics

    Art is Inherently Personal and Political

    By HSG on Thu, 10/29/2015 - 11:58am | Arts & Entertainment

    BarbaraAllenHelaine Smith is an English teacher at an elite K-12 girls school in New York City.  The Wall Street Journal recently published her essay on teaching literature without letting "politics" or "personal identity" intrude.  Here is my response to the Journal:

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    Arts & Entertainment
    Doctor Cleveland's picture

    Praise for the Foremothers

    By Doctor Cleveland on Tue, 10/27/2015 - 7:59pm | Arts & Entertainment, Personal

    This is how it works: men and women do things - write books, build institutions, start movements - that change your life forever, and the men get into the history books. The women mysteriously fall out of the story, over and over. How many times have you heard or read the words, "Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to be free"? How many of you can name the writer off the top of your head? That's what I'm talking about.

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    Arts & Entertainment
    Personal
    Doctor Cleveland's picture

    Where Is the GOP's Mr. Reliable?

    By Doctor Cleveland on Sat, 10/24/2015 - 3:00pm | Politics

    Last month when I blogged about the Republican primaries, I was struck by the fact that no front-runner has emerged as the role of the safe, electable choice. Primaries frequently resolve into contests between an establishment choice who runs on electability and an outsider or dark horse who runs on ideological closeness to the party base or, to pick up the dating metaphor from my earlier post, the primary becomes a choice between the safe, reliable suitor your parents want you to marry and the exciting boyfriend or girlfriend with shakier prospects.

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    Politics
    Ramona's picture

    So it's Clinton vs. Sanders. Can't We Just Be Frenemies?

    By Ramona on Thu, 10/22/2015 - 10:58am | Politics

    Yesterday Joe Biden stood in the Rose Garden with his wife Jill and President Obama and announced he wouldn't be running for president. (Thank you, Joe, you did the right thing. I love you.) It's still early in the election season (WAY early.  Did you know Canadians can only campaign for 78 days? Must seem like a damned eternity, right?) but unless a dark horse comes up from behind, it looks like it'll be a run between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.

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    Politics

    The Beauty of High Marginal Tax Rates on the 1%

    By HSG on Wed, 10/21/2015 - 5:28pm | Politics

    Dewey-LeBoeuf-new-sign-New-York2-300x184Monday, the New York Times reported that the recently-concluded criminal trial against three former executives at the bankrupt Dewey & LeBoeuf law firm ended in a mistrial.  Last week, the jury hung on several of the 151 charged counts of fraud and acquitted on others.

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    Politics
    Michael Maiello's picture

    When Captain America Throws His Mighty Shield

    By Michael Maiello on Mon, 10/19/2015 - 10:36pm | Arts & Entertainment

    Marvel comics is soft-rebooting all of its titles.  Marvel is, along with Star Wars, Star Trek and pro wrestling, a huge part of my pop-cultural life.  I'd love to say, "my childhood," but we all know that's too kind.  

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    Arts & Entertainment
    Doctor Cleveland's picture

    What Is a "Good" College? Two Tentative Answers

    By Doctor Cleveland on Sun, 10/18/2015 - 11:33pm | Arts & Entertainment, Business, Personal

    Sometimes, because of my job, people ask me advice about choosing colleges. It's always nice to be helpful, but talking about college reputations can be a minefield. Obviously, you learn quickly that you should never put any college or university down, but that's not enough. People can also get very prickly when you don't praise a particular college enough.

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    Arts & Entertainment
    Business
    Personal

    Attribution Theory or why Media Elites don't like Bernie Sanders

    By HSG on Sat, 10/17/2015 - 3:59pm | Politics

    LizzaRight after the Democratic debate Ryan Lizza tweeted "Hillary Clinton won because all of her opponents are terrible."  Other pundits were every bit as hyperbolic as the New Yorker's snarky reporter.  The Boston Globe declared "Hillary Clinton roars, Bernie Sanders stumbles".  Politico insisted "Clinton towers, Sanders glowers." 

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    Politics
    Michael Wolraich's picture

    Insurgency: The Difference Between Democrats and Republicans

    By Michael Wolraich on Wed, 10/14/2015 - 10:32am | Politics

    The insurgent impulse is not unique to Republicans. The right has its Trump. The left has its Sanders. But last night's debate illuminated the stark contrast between Democratic insurgents and Republican insurgents.

    In his debate performance, Bernie Sanders showed himself to be principled, passionate, knowledgeable, and virtuous. He argued relentlessly against the corruption of money and the plight of American workers--as he has for decades. When he had an opportunity to prick Hillary Clinton over the email scandal, Sanders chose instead to dismiss the brouhaha as a distraction from the issues that matter. He is a revolutionary in the finest tradition of high-minded American revolutionaries, from George Washington to F.D.R., who would change the world without sacrificing dignity or decency. He is, to use my grandfather's term of highest praise, a mensch.

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    Politics

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