The formula that I have long toyed with the notion of revealing is nowadays the intellectual property of Conde Nast, yet the kind of article discussed here would not look out of place in any of number of niche publications, from Plage and Piste to the more sombre Snort! and Anorexia Today. Still more encouraging for the canny sycophant considering journalism as a career is the fact that successful editors everywhere, including those on magazines believed to be serious and newspapers known as highbrow, will always respect a quality product manufactured according to the formula, in contrast to something thrown together … 
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This exchange between Michael Scheuer —former head of the bin Laden unit and author of the brilliant Imperial Hubris —and the idiotic Bill Maher is a classic: Synopsis of the good part: Maher asks “Why are they trying to attack us?”—and then answers his own question, opining “As long as there’s an israel in the world, and I’m a big supoorter of Israel ... they’re always going to be going after us.” Scheuer: I disagree with you Maher: Which part? Israel? Yes, says Scheuer, I just don’t think it’s worth an American life or an American dollar. Not only Israel, but … 
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The National Post opines: “Of all the provocative things for the Iranian president to say in his rambling address, the strangest has to be his contention that there are no gay people in Iran.” Yet not so strange, if you understand his point of view. In Iran, you see, homosexuals are thought of as women trapped in male bodies. That’s why they offer free operations for those who want to change their sex (from male to female, that is. Women into men would be too much for them to handle.) In the Persian mindset—and in much of the Muslim world—anyone who … 
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To a certain extent, all of us are what we think. And what we read determines our thoughts. Ergo, we are the product of what we read. No wonder I am confused most of the time. What I have been reading lately is terribly confusing and contradictory. I would prefer to be enjoying the poetry of Andrew Marvell and Robert Herrick, the orations of the American Indians, and poems from ancient Greece. As it is, I am stuck in a world of geopolitics and the current American scene, where everything is up for grabs. There is much mendacity and cocksureness, but … 
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Great. That’s all we need. There is a cholera epidemic in Iraq caused by the “decrepit water supply system”. The outbreak started in northern Iraq, aka Kurdistan, the peaceful portion of the former nation-state of Iraq, now rendered a bloodbath thanks to “Operation Iraqi Freedom”. The outbreak has spread to Baghdad, where all hell happens without warning on a daily basis. You break it, you own it. Washington is the occupying power. The government in Baghdad is a client, installed under a U.S. military occupation, ongoing and “enduring”. By invading the county, Washington has made itself responsible for the security and … 
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On a bookshelf in my office sits a copy of the third printing of Joseph Sobran’s wildly popular 1983 book Single Issues: Essays on the Crucial Social Questions. I have another copy, a first edition, at home. Both bear the same Introduction by J.P. McFadden, the founder and first editor of Human Life Review. Sobran dedicated the book “To J.P. McFadden . . . with affection.” Both the Introduction and the dedication are especially appropriate, since the book is composed of 15 essays, all of which first appeared in Human Life Review. Each essay in the collection is a sparkling gem, … 
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One tends to do a lot of reading on board a boat while sailing far from the madding yobs.  Mostly books, thank God, as newspapers are hard to find until they’re ready to wrap fish. The Spectator, of course, is sent wherever I am by my nice personal assistant who buys it first thing Thursday morning and has it delivered by special messenger to the nearest marina. When times are good it comes even faster, with sweet young London things doing the delivering. Last week I read David Gilmour’s review of The Force of Destiny, by Christopher Duggan, and a very … 
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A few days ago I was diverted from working on my computer by an exchange on FOX between Bill O’Reilly and someone described as his “ombudswoman.” The lady in question pointed out to O’Reilly that he had been rude to Ron Paul, who had been on his show, and that he kept interrupting his dignified guest with a scowl. O’Reilly responded that “that’s the kind of thing you hear from Ron Paul fanatics,” who apparently are not to be taken seriously. Needless to say, Ron Paul and his admirers do not rate the adulation that O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and the other … 
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The Baker-Hamilton Report has come and gone. The Petraeus Report has come and gone. Nothing has changed. There is no exit. More to the point, there is no plan for an exit. Give credit to Cheney and Bush. They do what they please, and get away with it. They are blinkered and we are bamboozled. The White House is staying the course, muddling through, like jingo John Bull during the Boer War. Senator Chuck Hagel summarized the Cheney-Bush Iraq policy a few days ago on television: “...it’s dishonest, it’s hypocritical, it’s dangerous and irresponsible…. This war policy, where we are today, … 
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As the Bush administration comes corkscrewing back to earth, like one of the early V-2 test shots that nearly obliterated its own launch team, the trickle of self-justifying memoirs from the perpetrators is widening into a flood. For sheer three-hanky mawkishness, nothing will probably be able to match the forthcoming cri de coeur of that noble martyr, Colin Powell. And Douglas Feith’s impending auto-hagiography will doubtless win the championship for impudent effrontery. But until then, we can satisfy ourselves with Alan Greenspan’s The Age of Turbulence, now on sale at your local bookstore.   Spendthrifts and Hypocrites   The media takeaway … 
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