The New Republic

Mike Nizza has an interesting update from Virginia Poly on the New York Times web-site. It relates to the point I made last night about the isolation and insularity of troubled people on a campus. No one takes responsibility for anyone. Except that the poet Nikki Giovanni, who teaches at the university, tried. READ MORE >>

If you are one of those people who thinks Barack Obama is the most electable Democrat out there, and if you think he is capable of being a powerful and moving speaker, you still have to face up to the fact that his speeches can be really, really grating. Here's Ben Smith from The Politico's website: READ MORE >>

John Edwards released some good news with his weekend Quarter 1 expenditures disclosure -- he didn't spend a cent on pollsters; his campaign manager is working for free -- but then this cringe-worthy story had to go and show up on CNN's home page: READ MORE >>

by Christine Stansell How bad can it get? Really bad. Ever since the U.S. attorney scandal started to heat up, it's been a pleasure to read the morning news. Last year this time, the initial suspicions and revelations would have flared up and died down in a couple of news cycles, one more blip on the outrage radar. It's not that the press is so much brighter--although they do seem to be waking up and shaking off the torpor (remember back when the White House press corps got a kick out of Bush's good-old-boy nicknames?). READ MORE >>

by Linda Hirshman READ MORE >>

The vigilantes are coming. No, actually, the vigilantes have already been there. And "there" means Gaza. Early on Sunday, a Bible Society bookshop and two internet cafes were bombed by Islamic fanatics in their war against Christianity and other infidel beliefs and life-styles. This is reported in an AP dispatch on Ha'aretz on-line. No one has yet claimed responsibility for these attacks. But some outfit named Swords of Islam READ MORE >>

As I pointed out a few days ago, President Abbas had consoled the director-general of the BBC that he had "credible evidence" that the abducted English Gaza correspondent, Alex Johnston, was alive and well. Forgive me. But I suggested that there was no such evidence at all. Now comes a statement from an organization called The Brigades of READ MORE >>

by Sonya Michel Was anyone else struck by the ironic juxtaposition of these two headlines on the front page of the March 26 New York Times: "Poor Behavior Is Linked to Time in Day Care" and "Failing Schools See a Solution in Longer Day"? What's a woman--and, more to the point--what is American society to do? READ MORE >>

The slaughter in Iraq--yes, the slaughter that the U.S. and the U.K. are there honorably trying to end--continues. The fact is that the Sunnis and Shi'a harbor genocidal intentions against each other. So please stop the debate as to whether this is a civil war or not. It is worse, much worse. Worse numerically certainly than Darfur, which you know how terrible I think that is. And how much TNR has crusaded to get someone--and, God knows, not the U.N.--to interfere. READ MORE >>

And in the ten minutes I was posting my last Spine on Iraq, two Reuters dispatches were put on the Times web-site, one about a Muslim bomb attack killing three including a child, on a base in Tolo in the Phillipines, the other about a suicide attack, presumably by the Taliban, READ MORE >>