First up, an update to the Alterman-Blumenthal fracas. Read Alterman’s responses to Blumenthal here and here. Blumenthal subsequently responds to both Alterman and JJ Goldberg. Then there comes this sally from Alterman again. A Dish reader patiently tries to see the good side of such an intemperate blog-war:
Sometimes I find that valid points are embedded in a sea of largely unhelpful, defensive rhetoric, and because the topic is so fraught, as well as complex, I don’t think we advance the cause of understanding by acting as though any side is obviously wholly correct, as various readers might conclude in either direction by reading only one round of the discussion. Distilling areas of agreement and clarifying the scope of disagreement are more likely to occur through patient engagement with this debate over time.
That’s the point of providing all these links to the debate, for want of a better word. My sympathy for Max’s obvious provocations comes from a sense that this is an area where to see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle. And I instinctively recoil from arguments that try to police public debate – as so many reflexively pro-Greater-Israel writers sadly do.
But back to today: the horror of pig farms; Michel Gondry animates Noam Chomsky; a street musician has his Woody Allen-Marshall McLuhan moment; reflections on leaving New York City; how insurers are undermining the ACA; and a haunting Venetian window.
The most popular post? A Double Down Cameo. Second: New York, I Love You, But … The most shared post? Inside America’s Concentration Camps.
See you in the morning.
(Photo: A rat emerges from bushes in St James’s Park on November 4, 2013 in London, England. By Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.)
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