The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

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Visions

By Barth on Sat, 04/16/2011 - 2:35pm |

It was very late when the President appeared before cameras a week ago Friday and croaked out something about how great it was that people who wanted to visit national monuments would be able to do so the following day. He told us:

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Mean Girls (and Boys) and the Mean Women and Men they Have Become

By Barth on Sat, 04/09/2011 - 2:18pm |

So that's how it ends. As NBC News White House correspondent Chuck Todd told Chris Hayes last night, the "price" for keeping Congress from cutting its minimal support of Planned Parenthood, was to make further cuts in other programs so that different poor and/or elderly and/or sick people get hurt.

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The Company We Keep

By Barth on Sat, 04/02/2011 - 7:47pm |

None of this should have surprised anyone, particularly those who could not bring themselves to vote, or otherwise support candidates whose election would have gotten in their way. The handwriting was on the wall, plain for everyone to see or, perhaps, to read. But either the President disappointed, or did something with which the voter disagreed and they got elected.

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Opening Day

By Barth on Thu, 03/31/2011 - 1:14pm |

Some with whom I am very close says:

 

Rosh haShanah, Yom Kippur and Opening Day. Right? In the beginning...

 

So here we go, knowing that those to whom I send this have been unable to sleep in anticipation....

 

Boston

New York*

Baltimore

Tampa Bay

Toronto

 

Detroit

Chi(A)

Min

Cle

KC

 

Texas

Oak

LAA

Sea

 

Phi

Atl

NY(N)

Fla

Washington

 

Cin

SL*

Hou

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Perfect Timing

By Barth on Sat, 03/26/2011 - 3:16pm |

If he had ever heard of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, it had never made much impact on him. It was so long ago, and in New York, and the victims barely spoke English. And, anyways, what does it have to do with him?

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Eating Cake

By Barth on Sat, 03/19/2011 - 1:35pm |

For those who are neither economists nor actors who play them on tv, it is not as easy as it is for Paul Krugman. With a Nobel under his belt, his Princeton and New York Times credentials intact, and maybe with an eye to not having to run naked through the streets, he tells us he has

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Fingers on the Scale

By Barth on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 1:49pm |

Nothing in the following post is intended to or can be read to suggest that any political organization or affiliations as exist in the United States of America are offshoots, related to, intentionally emulating or seeking to impose a fascist or communist system in this country. It just seems that way sometimes.

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Dangerously Out of Touch

By Barth on Sat, 03/05/2011 - 2:03pm |

Go ahead. I dare you. Watch those Sunday talk shows from our nation's capitol and see how much of what passes for political discussion concerns the need for government to cut back on spending. David Gregory will almost certainly ask someone what ideas there are to get "entitlements" "under control".

Then, even if you have already seen this, listen to what those who study these things say (about halfway into this):

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Inauguration Day 1933

By Barth on Fri, 03/04/2011 - 3:20pm |

From the second one in 1793, until 1933, the presidential inaugurals, at least those which followed an election, were held on March 4. The last one held on that date was the day the "only thing we have to fear is fear itself" speech was delivered by our greatest president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The speech is worth listening to and reading in its entirety.  Beyond the phrase that has resounded through the years, though, remain large segments which bear repetition today. Such as:

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Awakening from a deep sleep

By Barth on Mon, 02/28/2011 - 12:08pm |

With no time for a second post this weekend, your inveterate correspondent respectfully refers you to a surprisingly spot on New York Times editorial yesterday, the Goldman Sachs report to which it refers (as reported by Jonathan Karl of ABC News, but which, of course, all viewers of Rachel Maddow heard

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