Some years ago my then-flatmate Rich set out to open a cafe in his hometown of Wayne, Pa. This was good news for me, since roasters and growers began deluging our Ardmore apartment with samples of their goods. Rich had no money of his own, but he found a financial partner who appreciated his attention to detail, his capacity for hospitality and his passion to create a "great good place." (The phrase comes from the title of this book by... Read more
In the 2002 race for Pennsylvania's reconfigured 13th congressional district seat, Democrat Joe Hoeffel narrowly won re-election over opthalmologist Melissa Brown. Brown's signature issue was "Section 8 reform." Essentially, Brown used Section 8, the federal subsidy for low-income housing assistance, as a wedge-issue translating into "Big Government forcing you to accept black people in your neighborhood." (Links to many of my 2002 posts on the Brown campaign seem to be bloggered — this one and this one are working.) Brown's... Read more
After hearing a clip from British Prime Minister Tony Blair's remarks Wednesday in Portugal on the BBC, I looked up the speech on Blair's official Web site. Reading it provided a stark example of what is for me the biggest difference between Tony Blair and George W. Bush: Tony Blair disagrees with my position on the war in Iraq. Blair arrived in Portugal after attending a memorial in Madrid for those who died in the March 11 bombings there. Here... Read more
In his column in The Hill, Josh Marshall examines the ongoing saga of the flying monkeys vs. Richard Clarke. Marshall sees a pattern with this and earlier stories of previous Bush administration counterterrorism experts such as Joe Wilson and Rand Beers. Marshall offers two theories to explain this pattern: The first possibility is that the Bush White House is so freewheeling, inattentive and just plain unlucky that it keeps appointing senior counterterrorism aides who actually turn out to be both... Read more
"Does this dress make me look cheap?" "No, it makes you look expensive." Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is the latest public servant to offer the strange argument that his acceptance of favors implies no corresponding favoritism because someone in his position would never sell out so cheaply. A similar line of argument has been forwarded by Dick Cheney and his defenders regarding the $150,000 or so the vice president collects each year from Halliburton Co., his former employer. Cheney's... Read more
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) – "Walk the Line," the biopic of late country music legend Johnny Cash, is reportedly set to start filming in June. Joaquin Phoenix plays the "Man in Black" with Reese Witherspoon as his wife, June Carter Cash. James Mangold ("Identity," Girl, Interrupted") sits in the director's chair. The movie … chronicles the late singer's life, from his days on a cotton farm in Arkansas in the late 1940s, to his early stardom with Sun Records in Memphis,... Read more
Left Behind, pp. 35-39 As our heroes prepare to touch down in the shattered, post-“rapture” world, they survey the damage, the consequences — so much loss, death, disaster and calamity — and they realize what this means: a logistical nightmare. That’s the theme of these pages, and a major theme of the next chunk of Left Behind. LaHaye and Jenkins present glimpses of mass carnage, but almost always from the perspective of how this makes it inconvenient for our heroes... Read more
Imagine yourself in one of the following hypothetical situations: * Your boss, who is Catholic, invites you to his daughter's wedding and you've never been to a Catholic wedding before. * Your new coworker is a Mormon and you don't want to make any Mormon faux pas. You're not even sure if there is such a thing as a Mormon faux pas or what it might be. * You're headed to the funeral of a friend's father who, you've just... Read more
My printer ran out of ink, so I'm stuck here in the house and can't hit the bookstore just up the road to buy Richard Clarke's book Against All Enemies. The reason I can't leave the house is because I ordered a sixpack of cartridges from the fine folks at Ink4Art and they ship UPS. And UPS is clueless. The United States Postal Service and private carriers such as Federal Express appreciate that the lobby of my building is a... Read more
Gasoline prices hit an all-time high yesterday. And they're still climbing. The Bush administration continues to rewrite the record books for dismal economic statistics. They're like Herbert Hoover on andro. For those keeping score at home: 1. Highest all-time gasoline prices. 2. Highest all-time federal deficit (in dollars). 3. Highest all-time national debt. 4. Highest all-time trade deficit. 5. Highest all-time level of consumer debt. 6. Highest all-time number of personal bankruptcies. 7. Highest all-time number of defaults on mortgages.... Read more
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