The theft of US nuclear secrets, the diverting of them to Pakistan and possibly Saudi Arabia, the involvement of Israel in the scheme -- all of these would justify as jaw-droppingly newsworthy in a rational journalistic universe. ...
NEW ORLEANS--The decorations on the houses in my neighborhood--and people in my neighborhood are wickedly dedicated decorators--have gone from green and red to purple, green and gold, the annual signal of the transition from "your" holiday season to "ours". The ...
American media woke up to the story of Pakistan momentarily, when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. But, just as quickly, Pakistan disappeared from the U.S. media radar screen. This week, the NYT led its Tuesda ...
In the wake of the "stunning" failure of public-opinion polls to predict accurately the result of the Democratic New Hampshire primary, perhaps it's appropriate to revive a ...
I have no way of knowing what the Iranian fast boats did in relation to American ships, but what I do know is that the United States has a history of fabricated maritime incidents as trigger mechanisms for larger military actions (Gulf of Tonkin? remember the Maine?). ...
Barack Obama delivered a rousing didn't-I-almost-win speech Tuesday night in New Hampshire, and John McCain delivered a stirring I'm-the-comeback-don't-call-me-kid address on the occasion of his victory. What they, and all the other candidates in the ...
NEW ORLEANS--In Saturday night's Democratic debate, moderator Charles Gibson opened the proceedings with a question about Pakistan and one about nuclear terrorism. Not one of the candidates connected the dots: the chief proliferator of nuclear knowhow ...
Bill Carter, writing about the return of writers to the returning Letterman and Ferguson shows in today's NYT, asserts, in passing, that Donald Trump "is not" a member of the Screen Actors' Guild. That's relevant, because, as a supposed non-member ...
That's the quote of a shock trauma expert, puzzling over the ever-more-puzzling case of the assassination -- or bumping into the sunroof lever -- of Benazir Bhutto, as reported in this Washington Post story. The details get progressively more troubling: ...
New Orleanians get no shortage of hortatory messages about self-reliance from other parts of the nation they thought they belonged to. So Sunday's Times-Picayune sends the message right back. Here's a story full of as many touchstones of self-reliance ...
Barely twenty-four hours after her assassination, Benazir Bhutto, whose corporeal remains were buried in Rawalpindi, may have had her less tangible remains inserted firmly into Karachi's spin machine. Today we're told by the Pakistani government's ...
It's not the job of political satirists, I've believed, to pal around with politicians. Only Mort Sahl, in my ken, has been able to do that kind of socializing without trading his teeth for a comfy set of gums. I have met two American presidents ...
That's the question that comes to mind when you read Leslie Eaton's NYT piece on the former leader of St. Bernard Parish, Junior Rodriguez. On the plus side, it's probably the first MSM look at Da Parish, a standing rebuke to the media meme that ...
Something important is happening in New Orleans this week. Under the leadership of John Barry (full disclosure: I know this man), the new consolidated levee board has invited Dr. Bob Bea to the city, and, according to today's Times-Picayune, Bea ...
Every once in a while, I'm reminded of the bizarre technological dance we're being forced to go through in the federally-mandated switch to digital television. First, it's interesting for federalists and libertarians to note that, while it took ...
In the old, pre-disaster days, this week was the quiet time, the brief period (before the Sugar Bowl inundation) when the tourists left New Orleans, and the city belonged to the locals. Now as I drive or walk through the Quarter, my spirits lift ...
I'm not a big fan of surveys or polls. People who want to prove how dumb the public is--usually people in New York or LA--can always cite a survey showing that a significant slice of the populace can't locate China on a map. Or can't locate a map ...
For those people who still don't believe that the federal government is doing everything possible to avoid any responsibility for anything connected to the flooding disaster in New Orleans, this note: remember FEMA's pledge to test its trailers ...
New Orleans remains baffled and outraged by the decision of the Commission on Presidential Debates to bypass the city's application for a debate next year. Following up on questions asked by commenters to my previous post, I asked Anne Milling, ...
Any reader of the independent reports on the causes of the New Orleans flooding disaster, and comparing them with the Corps' serial versions of the event -- in initial public statements, and ultimately in its "IPET" report -- has to ...
Wasn't it a few years ago when, after New York had experienced 9/11, one of our major political parties decided to hold its 2004 convention in the Big Apple as a sign of national solidarity with the wounded city? Flash forward to ...
Another landmark in the history of New Orleans' relationship with the US Army Corps of Engineers was reached today, according to Mark Schleifstein in the TImes-Picayune. The new gates and levee repairs by the Corps, which ...
One of the questions most frequently asked by critics of the New Orleans recovery is "what happened to all that Federal money?" David Winkler-Schmit, in this week's Gambit Weekly, answers part of that question with a ...
A lot of the commenters who seem indisposed to sympathize with the plight of New Orleans call the citizens of that community dumb or careless for living in such a location. Yet, a New York Times story on Monday reports ...
The sad comedy-drama of the FEMA trailers sent to the Gulf Coast, New Orleans and Mississippi alike, just got a new chapter. These trailers, which have been home to hurricane and flood victims for a year and a half now ...
One of the many highlights from my most recent stay in New Orleans (others include seeing the Mahotella Queens at Snug Harbor, and virtually every opportunity to eat) was a conversation with a friend who works in the field of ...
Like Britain, Germany and Italy before it, Spain has dealt with its terrorism problem, at least for now, without resorting to war. Strangely, the country was able to round up, prosecute, try and convict the people behind the Madrid ...
BOSTON-- Republican Congressman (and presidential candidate) Duncan Hunter told George Stephanopoulos on Sunday morning that he thought the Congress would "reward" California (and his home town, San Diego) for its exemplary behavior ...
BOSTON--Sunday's NYT runs a piece on California officials mulling changes in development strategies in the wake of this week's fires. Two nuggets: the comparison of fire policy in ecologically similar Baja California (smaller fires, little damage) ...
BOSTON--Today's NYT runs a news analysis about the Bush Administration's not-so-discreet efforts to make the nation forget "Brownie, you're doin a heckuva job" and all the other damning details--the staff had to make him watch a DVD of the coverage ...
Everybody at least thinks they know about the role FEMA played, or mis-played, in the response to the Katrina disaster in New Orleans. What many people still don't realize is the role the US Army Corps of Engineers played in designing that disaster ...
SAN FRANCISCO -- The best indicator of the failure of the federal government to honor the President's Jackson Square pledge to do "whatever it takes" to promote the recovery of New Orleans from the disaster that followed from the collapse of the federal ...
I was but a babe when the Atomic Age began -- babe in the infant sense, babe -- and a mere tot when the decision was made to tame the mighty atom. Viewed from this distance, Atoms for Peace (as the taming project was called) seems impossibly wrongheaded ...
MELBOURNE, Australia -- Enough shots at the US Army Corps of Engineers about their decades-long project of building levees and floodwalls in New Orleans that could not withstand a storm surge smaller than the advertised safety level. Enough about the ...
Too much bad news about New Orleans recently. T-P columnist Chris Rose in his Sunday column reminds locals of one of the great characteristics of the city, its sense of humor. He writes about the Fox cop series K-Ville and its tendency to take New Orleans ...
It's been part of my shtick here over the past couple of years to try to hammer home the distinction between what happened to the Mississippi Gulf Coast -- a flattening by the winds of Hurricane Katrina -- and what happened virtually simultaneously to ...
The story in Burma just gets worse. The "warehouse", in which more than a thousand have been kept since their arrest, sounds like someplace even worse than Gitmo. And then there's the story of the Army major who deserted rather than stay to shoot monks, lest ...
Former temporary US envoy to the UN John Bolton has used his post-envoy period to become a popular talking head, more so, oddly, in the UK even than here. That headhood reached an apotheosis Sunday when he was invited to speak to the Conservative Party conference. This ...
CNN paid glancing attention to the Burma story Saturday morning, Fox was running its biz block, and MSNBC seemed to obsess on the little girl story. To see what was happening on the Burma story, Americans had these options: ...
Maybe I'm getting soft, but the notion that people halfway around the world are braving lifetime prison terms and possibly death for daring to peacefully protest against a brutally despotic government speaks to me. The notion that folks in Burma are trying everything ...
We haven't even put a dent in it. It's arguable that the laughably low approval rating the public gives the Democratic-run Congress is attributable to that body's failure to move the ball one inch down the field. Worse, the Democratic leadership has looked feckless, confused, spineless and ...
The argument has raged in New Orleans since the flooding: HUD, the federal agency which runs the city's public housing (don't ask), has insisted on demolishing the existing housing projects, even the ones undamaged by the floods, because the feds ...
So Hillary Clinton performed the "full Ginsberg,' appearing on all five major TV yak shows on Sunday. Surely, in almost two hours of television blather, she must have mentioned her commitment to the recovery of New Orleans and an accelerated ...
I guess the answer would be a major Sunday "takeout" on depression in New Orleans that never mentions the disappearance of as much as 80% of the mental health professionals from the city. Of course Peter Whoriskey's piece indulges in the lazy Katrina-mongering: ...
I thought if any national news coverage would have the time and the commitment to perspective to link the Jena 6 story to that of Shaquanda Cotton, it would be PBS' Newshour. But no such luck. Even though Newshour's first interviewee, live from Jena ...
The template of the New Orleans story was put in place by the mainstream media long since: the city got whacked, same as the Mississippi Gulf Coast, by Hurricane Katrina. What New Orleanians know--that the city was ravaged by floods caused by improperly designed and built federal floodwalls which ...
In introducing his new pick for Attorney General, Judge Michael Mukasey, President Bush put great emphasis on Mukasey's performance during a crucial criminal case: the trial of the "blind sheikh" found responsible for the bombing of a New York landmark in 1993. The target ...
Despite the currently popular cant about everything from Katrina to Iraq that we "can't look back, we have to look forward", we have evidence this week that knowing what went wrong is essential to know how to proceed constructively. The jury in the case of the tragic deaths of the frail and sick elderly residents ...
Republican Senator Larry Craig of Idaho will announce tomorrow that he's resigning from the Senate to spend more time with his men's room.
NEW ORLEANS--President Bush's fly-in visit to New Orleans yesterday, so full of the bravado and grinning positivism that we've come to recognize from other disasters, like Iraq, provoked a ...