family

In the weeks following its mid-May release, I found myself, in public and print, issuing wrong-headed disclaimers and qualifications about my novel, The Bradbury Report . I was worried that my concept, cloning (a relatively ‘high’ concept), might subsume everything else, i.e. the more important stuff, I meant to do in the book. I expressed concern that the word ‘cloning’ used in any way connected to my novel - this was, of course, inevitable - would mark it, misleadingly, as science fiction.

As a foreign affairs columnist, it feels a bit odd to be writing about the Black Sea when so much is going on at home:: the overdue firing of US general Stanley McChrystal, Britain’s impressive attack on its debts, new US bank regulation, and the hugely expensive and mostly unnecessary G20 jamboree in Toronto, which has turned that normally sedate metropolis into a version of “Escape from New York.” More on McChrystal and his Crusaders next week. To me as a military historian, Yalta is a nexus of history, the site of events that continue to affect our world to this day.

By Eli Winkelman Two weeks ago, I went to the White House for its first
The rest is here:
Jumpstart: A White House Family Reunion

The Gulf disaster proves, at a minimum, that Sarah Palin’s mindless slogans like ” Drill Baby Drill ” are not enough to make good energy or environmental policy. A video by Americans for America PAC , which I co-direct, tries to make that case as simply as possible, juxtaposing Palin’s chanting tea party hordes with a few images from the Gulf. And yet, even in the face of the greatest disaster the Gulf has ever seen, Palin still refuses to admit any error or nuance. Malia Litman noted Sarah Palin’s reaction to the Gulf Disaster here in HuffPost yesterday.

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin–recently dubbed by Gabriel Sherman of New York Magazine as the “President of right-wing America” –and her Anchorage attorney Thomas Van Flein continue to deal in duplicity and fraud in response to findings issued by the Alaska Department of Law regarding Ethics Act complaints levied against Palin and her deceptively named Alaska Fund Trust.

Sarah Palin tweets her prayers for the Gulf Coast: Having worked/lived thru Exxon oil spill,my family&I understand Gulf residents’ fears.Our prayers r w/u.All industry efforts must b employed Maybe she should say “I’m sorry.”
View original post here:
Pray, baby, pray

Today is a sad day for America. Specially for us Latinos who see this as a major setback in the fight for equality and civil rights. The immigration bill signed into law by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is not one designed to curb illegal immigration, but rather it legalizes racial persecution and institutionalizes discrimination. It represents the first outcome -of many to come- pushed and supported by the hateful rhetoric peddled time and again by the Tea Party and many of its followers.

There are many horrible jobs in this life. Emergency room janitor. Sow inseminator. Earwax collector. Sarah Palin’s grammar checker. Glenn Beck’s fluffer. Republican. New Jersey. But when I sit back, sip my scotch and scan the newswires for sundry effluvia indicative of our culture’s joyful hellbound deathspin, the realization soon dawns that I can think of few gigs more nightmare-inducingly, soul-deadeningly horrible than being an executive for garbage food megacorp.

This is not the greatest time for me to run for political office; I have young children, a teenage daughter that need my attention. I am midway through the goal of proceeding to law school. I have lived a life of delays, disappointments, and dreams deferred. I come from a background of sheer poverty; I lived on Hill 57, a mostly Ojibwe camp for 20 years. My teens were spent in a two room house during the height of Reaganomics; a member of a class of forgotten Americans–urban, non-reservation Native Americans. My own parents were disabled.

Oscar alumni Joel and Ethan Coen … Oy those two, oy. What an elusive duo they can be. Like it was surprising they even sat down with us, at a roundtable no less, to talk about their latest pic, A Serious Man . But at the end they allowed no photo…? They don’t want us to show their shana punim? Perhaps they are stacking Oscars like so many Torah that they want something to remain elusive about them.