Category Archives: history

Philip Roth’s many phases

Posted on May 25, 2018 by oddmanout215

Time flies faster as you grow older. One day you wake up and read Tom Wolfe is dead. Blink a few times and there goes Philip Roth, too. I was drawn to Roth’s fiction indirectly, around the time he was … Continue reading →

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Torturer shatters glass ceiling at CIA

Posted on May 18, 2018 by oddmanout215

Yesterday Gina Haspel overcame all the obstacles — job segregation by gender, the old-boy network, lax enforcement of anti-discrimination laws, attempts to present evidence that she was a torturer — to become the first woman director of the CIA. A … Continue reading →

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Tom Wolfe’s works will live on! Really!!!

Posted on May 16, 2018 by oddmanout215

After hearing Tom Wolfe had died, I thought of that scene in The Bonfire of the Vanities where master of the universe Sherman McCoy, under arrest, is paraded past reporters with Styrofoam peanuts clinging to his expensive suit. …They were … Continue reading →

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Trump has nothing to lose

Posted on April 11, 2018 by oddmanout215

Reporters and White House insiders seemed to agree yesterday that Donald Trump was “losing it” I wondered what they were talking about. Did they mean his ability to put aside personal problems and focus on the welfare of others? Was … Continue reading →

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Another day, another new low for Trump

Posted on November 28, 2017 by oddmanout215

Let’s say you’re one of the Navajo veterans of WW II who used your native language to create coded messages that the Japanese military couldn’t possibly figure out. You survived battles in the South Pacific, where Japanese soldiers usually fought … Continue reading →

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Cynical coda of ‘Mad Men’ finale: Coke is the real thing

Posted on May 21, 2015 by oddmanout215

An acquaintance of mine posted this question on Facebook last week: “Does anybody else find Mad Men‘s writing to be vapid, direction glacial, acting somnambulatory, and the cultural references boring?” I asked my friend Swamp Rabbit if he’d like to respond, … Continue reading →

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Icelanders: ‘Gimme that old-time religion’

Posted on February 5, 2015 by oddmanout215

Many Icelanders have had their fill of the enfeebled Christian deity and are feeling the nostalgic pull of the old Norse gods: Asatruarfelagid, a neopagan organization, plans to start construction next month on the country’s first Norse temple since Christianity … Continue reading →

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If Comcast’s CEO had sucked up to Teddy Roosevelt

Posted on January 24, 2015 by oddmanout215

Swamp Rabbit had an interesting thought today. You’ve got to wonder, he said, how many media companies Comcast CEO Brian Roberts would have gobbled up if recent U.S. presidents hadn’t been stooges for big business. Net neutrality is only one … Continue reading →

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The provocation game in France

Posted on January 8, 2015 by oddmanout215

Juan’s Cole’s analysis of the bloody assault on the office of the satiric magazine Charlie Hebdo wasn’t as stirring as Salman Rushdie’s, but Cole got to the heart of the matter: This horrific murder was not a pious protest against … Continue reading →

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Regarding Rushdie and the limits of satire

Posted on January 8, 2015 by oddmanout215

Salman Rushdie has issued an eloquent denunciation of the fanatics who slew 12 in Paris in the name of their god: I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been … Continue reading →

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