Category: The Dish

The chicks give Thompson thumbs down – with pics!

A reader writes:

Is Bob Herbert predictable? Certainly. Is he a mediocre writer? He’s not a great writer, and probably the least gifted of those writing for NYT editorial page.  But when I saw your post on him I thought back immediately to those 46 blacks arrested by a vicious racist cop in Tulia, Texas back in 1999. It was soon clear that they had been framed and arrested because they were black.  Governor Bush and his administration did nothing about it. They languished for more than a year. Bob Herbert picked up their cause and did something with it.  Has David Brooks ever done something to expose and right an injustice like this?  Not that I can think of. So I put Herbert in the path of the righteous.  Sanctimonious, perhaps. But I wouldn’t want to live in a world that lacked his sort of sanctimonious writing.

… who the guy talks to. Bush this morning:

"I got an A, however, in keeping taxes low and being fiscally responsible with the people’s money."

Ask Greenspan.

Japanese seniors are apparently uninterested in techno-servants:

"Most (elderly) people are not interested in robots … They want to be able to get around their house, take a bath, get to the toilet and that’s about it," according to Ruth Campbell, a geriatric social worker at the University of Tokyo.

No Oprah?

We know very little about how the brains of pedophiles differ from those with attraction to adults. That’s changing.

"Those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things be proper or safe judges whether a war ought to be commenced, continued, or concluded. They are barred from the latter functions by a great principle in free government, analogous to that which separates the sword from the purse, or the power of executing from the power of enacting laws," – James Madison, quoted in another excellent George Will column today.

Will is living proof that not all conservatives worship at the altar of unchecked executive power.

There’s a market for everything.

Ponnuru notes that the younger generation don’t want to stigmatize gays as much as he does.

… to go on Bill Maher’s HBO show. Hugh Hewitt disapproves. I’m scheduled for October 26, by the way.

Our final movie week Atlantic archive gem: Roger Ebert describes the escapist allure of cinema – in 1980:

"You slide down in your seat and make yourself comfortable. On the screen in front of you, the movie image appears-enormous and overwhelming. If the movie is a good one, you allow yourself to be absorbed in its fantasy, and its dreams become part of your memories."

Voting continues till we announce the Best Movie Line Ever soon after 5 pm tomorrow. Vote for your faves here. One option: these fourteen seconds of Samuel Jackson self-parody: