May 2011

In Memoriam

May 23, 2011

Jeffrey Steven Adler My Brother 1947-2011 (from my eulogy for Jeff, May 20, 2011) Jeff was my older brother, my big brother. My brother. Those are almost sacred words to me. A brother, in the truest sense of the word, both about the blood and beyond it, is a stalwart friend beyond compare. That’s what [...]

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Torture Doesn’t Work (and by the Way, It’s Wrong)

May 13, 2011

I’m a longstanding admirer of James Fallows, whose varied and always substantive and incisive blogging at the Atlantic is worthy of your attention, but even he today succumbs to the meme of the moment (and the last and the next) on torture. Congratulations to Sen. John McCain for his brave op-ed in the Washington Post [...]

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Torture and American Exceptionalism

May 12, 2011

Since la crème de la GOP decided to use the death of Osama bin Laden as the basis for a renewed defense of torture (and other virtues that form the basis of their overweening national pride), I’m offering this week from the none-too-dusty sad red archives the best this blog has had to offer on [...]

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This Whole Debate Is Torture

May 11, 2011

Given that the dark matter is once again exercising its invisible pull on the national consciousness – come, let me show you something my little darlings, its right here, just around the corner, you’ll like it, a little further now – and attempting to use Osama bin Laden’s long goodbye as renewed justification for torture, [...]

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Obama & Bin Laden: “A Politically Courageous Decision of the First Order”

May 10, 2011

Steve Schmidt, 2008 political adviser to the John McCain campaign appeared yesterday on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell and demonstrated what it means to be a “political opponent” and not a “political enemy.” While many other conservatives, in their grasping meanness, have sought to diminish President O’bama’s leadership in his action against Osama bin [...]

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Eating Poetry (XXV) – Some of the Words Are Theirs

May 6, 2011

The close of The Great Gatsby is probably the most famous and referenced ending of any American novel. Lyricized in a lushly romantic invocation of American promise, somehow gone wrong in the stinking, rich like of Tom and Daisy Buchanan, and in the aftermath of Jay Gatsby’s failed striving, with such foolish and criminal élan, [...]

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