This amazing story led off the Times the other day. It’s really worth your time and was hailed by at least one Fordham professor as the best article the nation’s journal of record has had in quite some time. We highly recommend checking out the audio/slideshow as well.
Slideshow and Audio
An Ambush and a Comrade Lost
ALIABAD, Afghanistan — The two Army lieutenants crouched against boulders beside the Korangal River. Taliban gunfire poured down from villages and cliffs above, hitting tree branches and rocks and snapping as the bullets passed over the officers’ helmets. (read more…)
Filed under: Edits, News, Sports | Tags: Celeb obits, Harvard Lampoon, John Updike, New York Times, New Yorker, Ted Williams
The Kid
John Updike, the writer behind the Rabbit Angstrom novels and the author of hundreds of short-stories and essays on a myriad of subjects, died today. He was 76. If you’re a member of the New York Times’ website (and you should-it’s free) you can read his obituary here.
More after the jump. (more…)
And as long as it’s on Fox News it’s OK.
For your viewing pleasure, the fine folks at Fox explain the Donkey Punch in a clip taken completely out of context and only barely related to the British film Donkey Punch, which opens in the US today.
For my money I prefer the New York Times review:
A young woman in the throes of passion accidentally dies from a donkey punch, a potentially lethal erotic stunt involving a blow to the back of the neck that is supposed to intensify the peak experience.
Classic.
-Pete
Filed under: Edits, News | Tags: Drudge Report, Hamas, Israel, New York Times, Palestine, revenge, violence
Leftist Rag
The lead story from today’s New York Times reports that the death toll in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict has risen to over 350 people. Meanwhile Matt Drudge led off today’s news cycle with “INCOMING,” which linked to this story.
Moving away from America’s favorite sensationalist media aggregator-dickhead and into our nation’s journal of record, the Times sees “no early end” to the latest round of violence to stem from the region. With no end in sight, one wonders what the next chapter of this long and bloodied history will hold.
While few pretend to know the answer–in fact, I rarely pretend to know anything at all–I do contend that I know a good idea when I hear one. And even though that last sentence may be somewhat incomprehensible, hopefully, these next few will not:
The Middle East crisis is a mess of a war that will probably drag on for centuries unless we take drastic diplomatic steps. Besides looking at the complex historical causes for the bloodshed, consider the present situation: each time one side attacks, the other retaliates on a greater scale. One side needs to refrain from reacting when provoked. Such a course seems simple, but when we look at the desire for revenge we in the U.S. felt after Sept. 11, we can understand that it is no small feat to accomplish.
April 15, 2002
Appearing in Time magazine over six years ago and written as a Letter to the Editor by a high school freshman, the idea seems simple enough. Sounding vaguely similar to another, oft recounted saying, something involving a “turn” and a “cheek,” an actual stop in retaliation would require far more strength than either side has yet to show.
In their repeated attempts to resolve this conflict through military might, whether it be rockets from the south or airstrikes from the north, both Hamas and the Israeli government have refused to commit to traveling down the only path that will lead to long term safety and stability. Pursuing a course of diplomacy takes an acknowledged amount of difficulty. Of course retaliation is the easy option. Yet if some jackass high school freshman could come up with this plan, wouldn’t you like to imagine that somebody a little higher up in the chain of command would see it too.
Hopefully it won’t take centuries to happen either.
-PM.
Filed under: News | Tags: Economic Crisis, Greenwich Time, Masters of the Universe, New York Times, Tom Wolfe
Everyone’s favorite man-in-white and author of Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe, wrote an op-ed piece for the The New York Times over the weekend telling readers that the men he deemed “Masters of the Universe,” that is, the ”ambitious young men…who, starting with the 1980s, began racking up millions…in performance bonuses at investment banks,” will face their own apocalypse tomorrow, September 30.
Why? These men left Wall Street for Greenwich Connecticut, Wolfe says, “abandoning investment banking for hedge funds six years ago.” But, Wolfe claims, while they and their hedge funds are still kickin’, unlike the investment banks they once worked for, these Masters of the Universe aren’t getting off scott free.
Tomorrow, September 30, marks the first of several dates that are designated times when people can withdraw their investments from hedge funds. And Wolfe explains, “Even with these strict caps on withdrawals, some funds may end up nothing but shells.” Boo hoo.
Wolfe’s op-ed piece, Greenwich Time
-Kate
Filed under: Edits | Tags: Bias, Drudge Report, Liberal Media Bias, New York Times, Steve Schmidt, Stupidity
Ya finally got 'em, Matty!
