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Paper Cuts offers a useful round-up of articles examining the politicization of the Olympics in the modern era, as well as the pros and cons of boycotts. Keeping up the human rights pressure on Beijing, Reporters Without Borders has released a trio of short films by Théâtre du Soleil director Ariane Mnouchkine. Here's one of them.
Blood all over the floor again as the Time columnist returns to the theme of neoconservatives and dual loyalties, this time in an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg:
...JG: You seem very angry at people who you specifically identify as Jewish neocons. And you're using the word "Jewish" in ways that we haven't seen Jewish reporters and Jewish columnists use.
JK: It's about time. I think everyone else is too afraid to do it. Let me just make something very clear that you already know about me. I am a strong supporter of Israel. I think Israel had a perfect
A bus-stop in the town centre yesterday. Generally speaking, I'm opposed to bringing back the birch, but I think I'd make an exception for people who work in advertising. Ah well, at least Wikipedia's entry on Calum Best (who he?) cheered me up:
In January 2008, the Daily Star reported that London's largest homeless charity, St. Mungo's, was overwhelmed with donations of Best's signature after-shave, apparently from citizens who received it as an unwanted Christmas gift.
Mary Beard is irked by David Blunkett's attack on alleged elitism:
Let me say to start by saying that I am basically on Blunkett’s side.
But, but, but:
It’s easy for Blunkett to sound off. And strikingly he doesn’t pause to reflect on his own government’s role in all this. Is it really Oxbridge’s fault that so many kids leave state schools without a foreign language at GCSE? Or that many are put off university courses out of fear of debt?
Mr B himself responds in the comments:
...We still have a situation
Bernard Avishai responds to David Brooks and other critics of Obama's Berlin speech. Actor Jon Voight probably didn't like it either.
I'll admit my eyes glazed over before I reached the end of the long and almost claustrophobically detailed New Yorker essay about his apprenticeship in the Windy City. So, apologies if I missed any major scandal. That said, I like this exchange with one of the black state senators who enjoyed making life difficult for the new guy in town:
HENDON: Senator, could you correctly pronounce your name for me? I’m having a little trouble with it.OBAMA: Obama.
HENDON: Is that Irish?
OBAMA: It will be when I run countywide.
Another reason I wouldn't want to try it there... Startling footage of a cop (could his name be Appleyard?) reacting to the Critical Mass ride through mid-town. Gothamist has more details.
[Via Paul Berger]
If you have a moment, it's worth dropping into the latest Bloggingheads conversation between John McWhorter and Glenn Loury. This kind of free-wheeling, honest talk seldom gets an airing on the old media. It's particularly interesting to see Loury - a Hillary supporter in the primaries - still trying to come to terms with Barack Obama. He can't quite silence those doubting voices in his head, although I think McWhorter has the better of the discussion on whether the Man From Audacity is talking down to African-American voters. (Oddly...
Kevin Drum mulls over the question of whether the Internet generation has lost the ability to concentrate on books and other grown-up stuff:
I’m obviously part of the older demographic that loves books, especially long books, and basically believes that you can't really learn anything serious about a subject unless you're willing to read books…And yet... spending a lot of time on the internet, as I have since 2002, has rubbed my nose in something that hadn't really bothered me before then: namely just how overwritten so many books and magazine articles are... t a guess, I'd say that...
It's curious, though, that the kids' dwindling attention-span doesn't seem to matter when it comes to cinema. One reason I tend not to go much any more is that the average film has become ridiculously over-extended. At the party at the weekend I was talking to someone who was singing the praises of "Couscous", a French movie I've been eager to see. Yet she also mentioned, almost as an afterthought, that it runs for two and a half hours - 30 minutes too long, in her opinion. That's an awful lot of padding. Andrew Neil makes a similar...
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