Dispatches

And You Thought MAD* Was Mad
05.05.2006 05:25 | RUSS WELLEN
 In his City Journal article "Facing Down Iran," Mark Steyn writes: "Now a state openly committed to the annihilation of a neighboring nation has nukes, and we shrug. . . Just the way things are. . . . let everyone get 'em, and...

Colbert's Display of Intestinal Fortitude Makes White House and Its Correspondents Squirmy
05.02.2006 07:53 | RUSS WELLEN
Whoever hired Stephen Colbert to act as host of the White House Correspondents Dinner must have done so while in the throes of a fit of sadomasochism. It's hard to tell who was more humiliated: the White House or the correspondents.While grueling for...

Has This Been the Golden Age of the Internet?
05.01.2006 05:16 | RUSS WELLEN
That first novel that reaches heights of intensity a writer never again attains. A ballplayer reaches the World Series as a rookie, never to make it again. Those first heady months of a love affair. Sometimes when you think something is just begi...

Baseball's Stock Down with Steroids, but Bonds Inching Up
04.28.2006 07:48 | RUSS WELLEN
As if a steady diet of harassment and condemnation weren't enough, now Barry Bonds faces indictment for perjury and possible suspension from baseball. He's been singled out as the nation's whipping boy for steroids because, thanks to his secon...

Gore's Got the Gravitas, but the Real Grizzly Adams Is Mike Gravel
04.24.2006 05:34 | RUSS WELLEN
Freezerbox founder Alex Zaitchik posted a dispatch entitled, "The 'Run, Al' Chorus," in which, first, he apologized for not voting for Gore in 2002. Then he urged him to grow back his beard as a way of leveraging his identifica...

When's the Nobel Committee Gonna Get Around to Lloyd deMause? (Who)?
04.17.2006 20:08 | RUSS WELLEN
Maybe you've seen mention of one of Psychohistory's founders in this space before. You know, the one who writes:"The amount of time and resources any society devotes to its children's needs is far more likely to be an accurate index...

Bloggers Strive to Fill Void Left by Mainstream Media on Iran
04.13.2006 11:33 | RUSS WELLEN
In response to Bush & Co.'s plans for Iraq, the bloggers have risen to new heights. For instance, in "Mutually Assured Dementia," Whiskey Bar's Billmon writes: ". . . For both the corporate and the conservative media, as well as...

Military Fragging Bush & Co.
04.10.2006 09:00 | RUSS WELLEN
Before the invasion of Iraq there was a handful of retired officers like one-time Centcom (Middle-East) commander General Anthony Zinni who spoke out against it. (And afterwards reflected on the "lying, incompetence, and corruption" he witnessed in the pr...

Iraq Jumps Shark, But High Hopes for Its Sequel, Iran
04.06.2006 06:05 | RUSS WELLEN
In "...

Scalia Watching Too Many Sopranos Reruns
04.03.2006 07:39 | RUSS WELLEN
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has attained a position as high as any Italian-American in the US government. You’d think he’d thus be extra-vigilant about reinforcing stereotypes about his people. . . In "Photographer: Herald got it right" Mari...

Take My Secretary of State, Please
03.31.2006 05:19 | RUSS WELLEN
Upon rumors that Condoleezza Rice was a candidate for the next National Football League commissioner, the dean of pro football writers, Dr. Z (Paul Zimmerman), wrote on SportsIllustrated.CNN.com: "When I read that name this morning I went into severe c...

Roll Over, Rove
03.30.2006 06:00 | RUSS WELLEN
. . . Let the special prosecutor take over (apologies to Jimi Hendrix). This, from The Raw Story: "According to several Pentagon sources close to Rove and others familiar with the inquiry, [he] tipped off Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to. . . del...

No Joy in Gloating Over Bush's Low Ratings
03.27.2006 05:50 | RUSS WELLEN
Who has the stomach to celebrate after all the havoc his administration has wreaked? Besides, embarrassment before the rest of the world that he's our president has long since turned into shame that we failed to remove him from office. (Or indict his peop...

Unless It's Value-Added, Religion's a Non-Starter These Days
03.23.2006 06:04 | RUSS WELLEN
Once upon a time people went to church to worship (and to make children restless and bore husbands). Now, however, traditional religions like the Protestant denominations of Lutheranism, Methodism, and Episcopalianism are dwindling. It seems worshippers a...

Full-Court Press on the Free Press
03.20.2006 10:02 | RUSS WELLEN
In her April Vanity Fair article, "Lies and Consequences," Marie Brenner chronicles the consequences of the "Sixteen Words That Changed the World" -- President Bush's claim in the 2003 State of the Union speech that Saddam Hussein tried to buy uranium fro...

Mutual Funds Have Turned into Mutual Admiration Societies for Their Managers
03.16.2006 05:05 | RUSS WELLEN
In The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism (Yale University Press, 2005), mutual fund innovator John Bogle echoes what former International Petroleum Exchange manager Chris Cook asserted in a previous Dispatch. Bogle writes that: ". . . a gradual move...

On a (Honor) Roll
03.13.2006 05:33 | RUSS WELLEN
Today we'd like to cite progressive portals and thank them for the work they do (including linking to Freezerbox articles). Cursor: Conscientiously constructed and creatively linked introductions to articles. Remains the most prestigious of portals....

It's Not Only Middle-Eastern Terrorists Who Cut Throats
03.09.2006 06:22 | RUSS WELLEN
Bet you've never heard this before. Former director of the British International Petroleum Exchange Chris Cook: "There has been a growing realisation on the part of major oil producers such as Iran and Saudi Arabia that oil is not priced in dollars but r...

Looks Like a Storm's a Comin', Mr. President
03.06.2006 05:58 | RUSS WELLEN
Slate's John Dickerson commenting on the Bush-Brown Katrina video: "[The] president's question-free briefing is more than a momentary bad piece of public relations. It's a blow to a key Bush myth [which is that the] Bush management philos...

Must Security and the Economy Be at Loggerheads?
03.03.2006 05:51 | RUSS WELLEN
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on the UAE deal: "We have to balance the paramount urgency of security against the fact that we still want to have a robust global trading system." Point taken. But if nuclear materials are smuggled through...