Christopher Orlet
For a minute I thought I was reading The Onion, then I realized the story “Radical Al-Qaeda Cleric Receives £50,000 In Welfare Benefits” was coming out of Great Britain and all became clear.
Good stuff over at Reason regarding how “policies designed for self-interested citizens may undermine “the moral sentiments.” “Bowles begins with a case where six day care centers in Haifa, Israel imposed a fine on parents who picked their kids up…
Stories about a precipitous rise in numbers of pregnant high school girls seldom make news — not even page 28 on a slow news day — that is unless the rise occurs in a picturesque blue-collar fishing town on Boston’s…
I was sitting at home the other night watching the fine HBO miniseries John Adams and wondering how long before the filmmakers got around to attacking George W. Bush and the War Against Terrorism. I didn’t have to wait long….
Apparently if you are Michelle Obama it is okay to say “baby’s daddy,” but not “baby daddy,” and Fox News cannot say either. Got it. Interestingly Salon’s Joan Walsh suggests that ignorance of the meaning of ghetto slang (if you…
Oh to be young and in love and in Paris in the Spring. I love the scene of the assembled guests “waiting for it.” Very Hawthornian.
Throughout the history of Western Civilization governments have devised all manner of diabolical ways to punish malefactors and scofflaws. Until the 20th century those found guilty of serious crimes at the Old Bailey were subject to any number of gruesome…
I’ve long held that Germans have the worst sense of humor in the West, so little wonder they don’t “get” satire. This, on the other hand, is not very good satire. Satire via sledgehammer, I believe it’s called.
So far this summer I’ve survived an earthquake, several tornadoes and countless floods. These were a far cry from your much ballyhooed End of Times scenario — more the Apocalyptic equivalent of a chipped nail. The magnitude-5.2 earthquake arrived back…
Like the spooks at Langley, book publishers need expert intelligence to do their jobs well. A good publisher can predict what social causes, historical eras, and intellectual fads and fashions will be in vogue a few years down the road….
