Monthly Archives: July 2002

Sowell’s tribute to Friedman is

Sowell’s tribute to Friedman is touching. Few intellectuals have been first reviled, then vindicated in their lifetimes, as Friedman has been. “We are all monetarists now,” Nixon should have said but didn’t; but beginning with Reagan, that statement came true. I hope that Sowell, one of the great Americans of his generation, will someday experience the same public adulation. I know less about Ginzburg, but he too appears to have »

The London Times is surprised

The »

Jay Nordlinger is an editor

Jay Nordlinger is an editor of National Review with a great ability to praise the virtuous, to damn the villainous, and to distinguish between the two. He writes an occasional column called Impromptus for National Review Online that is both entertaining and edifying. His column today notes the following: A great man has died: Aleksandr Ginzburg, the poet and dissident in the Soviet Union. Famously, he was asked at one »

In his elegy on the

In his elegy on the death of Yeats, W. H. Auden includes a puzzling couplet: In the prison of his days Teach the free man how to praise. Auden must have observed the tendency of those living in freedom to take their bounty for granted. One free man who takes little for granted and who has learned how to praise is Thomas Sowell. In his column today Sowell pays tribute »

Israel, thank goodness, killed a

Israel, thank goodness, killed a top Hamas murderer yesterday, but unfortunately, I guess due to faulty intellingence, several civilians living in or around his house, including some family members, were also killed or injured. This provoked the usual outcry from Europe, dwarfing in volume any European outrage over a Palestinian mass murder, to the extent that George Bush felt obliged to denounce the attack, I hope insincerely. Meanwhile, tens of »

Steve Earle is a man

Steve Earle is a man of execrable character and a voice to match. I would add only that he has written some fine, fine songs and that I asked Rocket Man to join me at his show because he was accompanied by the Del McCoury Band, one of the most awesome bluegrass bands now performing. I think Del and the boys (two of the band members are Del’s sons) belong »

I had thought the Steve

I had thought the Steve Earle controversy had come and gone quickly–mostly because hardly anyone has heard of him–but this morning the Wall Street Journal has another article on the subject. I have nothing particular to say about the controversy, but it does have a slight personal angle since I would know nothing at all about Earle had the Trunk, whose knowledge of popular music is much broader than mine, »

Don’t miss The Politburo’s deconstruction

Don’t miss The Politburo’s deconstruction of the New York Times’ reporting on civilian casualties in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the Arab News breathlessly repeated the Times’ tissue of speculation and fabrication as though it were authoritative. I can’t link to their article, however, as it seems to have disappeared from Arab News’ site. Maybe Arab News was embarrassed to be linked to a far-left publication like the Times. Or maybe they read »

If you’re depressed about the

If you’re depressed about the market, you might cheer yourself up by reading Trollope’s The Way We Live Now. Don’t be put off if you see a book jacket or introductory essay characterizing it as an indictment of “capitalism” (i.e., life). It isn’t; it’s a great book, with a couple of stock promoters who would be right at home today, right up to the tragic denouement. The “New Economy” of »

I’m about the worst investor

I’m about the worst investor in the world, so there’s no reason to listen to me on this one. But my guess is that the market won’t bottom out until the Dow is around 6,000 to 6,500. Then begins the slow creep back, which this time, I suppose, will be constrained by the need for actual corporate profits. Things were so much easier when we had a New Economy! »

Right, Trunk. I’d missed this

Right, Trunk. I’d missed this column, which adds nothing constructive to the generally depressing public discussion of race. Johnson and Ellis complain that “Minnesota’s criminal justice system imprisons blacks at 21 times the rate of whites,” as though the “criminal justice system” were some mysterious entity that maliciously sweeps people off the streets and deposits them in prison. Actually, of course, people go to jail because they are convicted of »

I’m late in getting to

I’m late in getting to it, and don’t have time to do it justice at the moment, but Friday’s Star Tribune carried a column co-authored by former Hennepin County Attorney Tom Johnson on “racial disparities” in the criminal justice system. As always, the reader must read between the lines to deduce that these racial disparities result from racial disparities in crime rates. Johnson says that racial disparities in the criminal »

According to Debka File, the

According to Debka File, the leading role in reshaping Palestinian governance is being given to USAID and is to be coordinated by Assistant Deputy Secretary of State Elizabeth Cheney. If this turns out to be correct, I assume it means that Bush and Cheney are taking no chances with the dubious loyalty of many State Department bureaucrats. »

Debka File reports that “the

Debka File reports that “the Bush administration is forging forward alone with a grand scheme for overhauling the Palestinian Authority politically, economically, militarily and administratively, a scheme so broad that the term ‘reforms’ does not begin to do it justice.” If Debka File is right, the plan includes fundamental changes in everything from water management to education; the US has already begun recruiting Palestinians to staff the two systems regarded »

Bret Stephens, writing in the

Bret Stephens, writing in the Jerusalem Post, points to improving coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict in America’s mainstream press. He identifies several reasons for the change, including public pressure by pro-Israel groups as well as President Bush’s aggressive pro-democracy position. I think an equally important factor has been the unrelenting critique emanating from America’s non-mainstream media, especially internet-based news sources. The dominant media simply can’t monopolize discourse as they could »

Andrew Sullivan has nailed the

Andrew Sullivan has nailed the New York Times lying about “global warming” in Alaska. But in the meantime, other newspapers, starting with the Washington Post, have repeated the Times’ hoax. The Post worked the Times’ misinformation into a story on melting glaciers that was then picked up by other newspapers. Here is a version of the story that appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Notice that the Strib, like the »

Stephen Hayes has an astute

Stephen Hayes has an astute piece on the coming war with Iraq in the issue of the Weekly Standard out this morning. Unlike the prestige press, the American people will not be surprised to learn that President Bush has meant what he said… »