The New Republic

Amadou Cisse, a very quiet, very intelligent 29 year Senegalese man recently finished the requirements for his doctorate in chemistry and was to receive his diploma in a few days at Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago. His thesis adviser, Professor Steven Sibener, said he was very proud of him and had the emptied bottle of champagne in Amadou’s honor up on the shelf with those of his other successful doctoral students. On Monday, Nov. 20, about 1:30 READ MORE >>

The article in this morning’s New York Times sports section about the sexual harassment gauntlet at Jets games made me remember that there was one last feminist fight I hadn’t gotten a black eye in yet. So here’s my take on loose boobs at the football games of losers and boobs.   --Linda Hirshman READ MORE >>

For years now, electronics manufacturers have struggled to develop "electronic readers"--handheld devices that could function, in effect, as iPods for books and magazines. I have written about their efforts a couple of times for the magazine (click here and here). READ MORE >>

 A commentator on my last blog suggested that it was time to shut this blog down. I took to the suggestion, thinking that I was being too self-indulgent, letting these blogs go in every which direction, expressions of a fickle and perhaps unstable mentality. But this then is what they are, unpaid snippets of a long life that includes sixty years of writing in a semi-professional (unpaid articles and stories for literary magazines) and then professional life. READ MORE >>

By now you've heard the mind-bending political news of the day--multiply so for someone who, like me, is interested in early modern history and comic books and libertarianism. READ MORE >>

The newly anointed editor of Commentary, John Podhoretz, published a column in which he said I called Tim Russert a Nazi here on Open U. Now the right wing blogosphere is marching in formation to broadcast the charge.Worse, Podhoretz said I was a nobody before I published my book, “Get to Work.”Whassup? READ MORE >>

“I’m really scared,” the NY Times reports Oren Ashkenazi of TVC Television and Cinema Wardrobe Cleaners saying about the imminent Hollywood writers’ strike. READ MORE >>

Last summer the Nevada Democrats pulled out of a debate sponsored by Fox News.  Loaded, racist and all the rest, the Dems decided it was incoherent for them to pretend Fox was a media outlet like any other. Tim Russert is worse, because he has the mantle of the venerable NBC, network of Nipper, the radio dog. Bulletin to Democrats: Just Say No to Russert.  See my piece at the Guardian. READ MORE >>

We have been engaged in a long-term study of judicial voting patterns, and we  recently published an oped in the Los Angeles Times, in which we gave “awards” to Supreme Court justices, based on a statistical study of their votes. The Judicial Neutrality Award went to Justice Anthony Kennedy. The Judicial Restraint award went to Justice Stephen Breyer. The less coveted Partisan Voting Award went to Justice Clarence Thomas. Justice Antonin Scalia received the Judicial Activism Award. READ MORE >>

  A report from a group of law students called "Building a Better Legal Profession" showed up in my e-mailbox the other day. The students did a survey of the big law firms to see how they measured up on a variety of diversity issues -- women partners, minority partners, etc. Since law firm hiring is a market, why shouldn't female and minority students at least know what they were buying into? READ MORE >>