The Dish

[Clive]

Professor Bainbridge casts an eye over the candidate’s record, and gives him a low grade:

Given the deleterious effects the trial lawyer industry has had on the American economy…  I remain unconvinced that a trial lawyer ought to have much authority over the economy.

The rhetoric about fighting poverty doesn’t go down too well, either:

His concern might be more plausible if he has demonstrated such concern in private life. Unfortunately, as the Washington Times reports, "During his career of allegedly championing the helpless, he took no pro bono cases."

French Quarter, New Orleans, 6:35am.

[Clive]

Here comes the choice of Norman Geras, proprietor of Normblog. Professor emeritus in government at the University of Manchester, and an authority on Marx, he’s currently rambling around Australia, where he’s cheering on the home side in the Ashes series. (The less said about that, the better. The subject is just too painful for English readers.)

Some time ago I read "Revolutionary Road" by Richard Yates, and followed up with three other of his novels – "Easter Parade", "Cold Spring Harbor" and "A Special Providence". Somewhere in there I formed the intention of reading all of his work. This year I’ve read two more of the novels: "A Good School" and  "Young Hearts Crying". I’ll nominate this last as my pick of the year. I love Yates’s writing. From the first page I feel settled in it, like I’m listening to an old friend talking. The world he describes is often one of hopes on the downward slope to defeat, of the compromises and small deceptions that find their way into the spaces between those living side by side, of the wear and tear of daily lives, and of the humanity that endures within them despite everything. "Young Hearts Crying" isn’t the best of Yates’s novels, but it has all these qualities, and like his other books it tells a gripping story.

[Clive]

Not everyone approves of the old rebel. One reader points out that Terkel got into a nasty slanging match with Christopher Hitchens not too long ago. Yes, I should have mentioned that. Another adds that Studs has a leftist agenda. True. And this reader thinks the fireman’s comments were unfair to bank staff:

I’m also a public high school teacher, and I would never share the Studs Terkel quote from the fireman with my English classes.  What a myopic view, a kind of reverse snobbery that shows how ignorant the fireman is about how our society works.

I’d better stress that the whole point of the "old" books choices was to gather a lot of different viewpoints across the spectrum. (For some reason, after I sent out the initial requests, I got more responses from conservative bloggers than from left-wingers.) As for me,  I’m right-wing on some issues, left-wing on others. Like most people, I guess.

[Clive]

Martin Peretz isn’t impressed with calls for a reprieve:

Italian Prime Minister Prodi has now protested the anticipated execution by hanging of Saddam Hussein because he doesn’t believe in capital punishment. I don’t believe in capital punishment either. Did Prodi believe the death sentence for Adolf Eichmann also wrong? I didn’t. Even if Saddam is not exactly in the category of Eichmann, he – like Pol Pot and other leaders of deliberately killer regimes – has no claim on our conscience. What’s more there is something prissy and finicky in Prodi if Saddam’s fate can touch his soul.

Well, if Prodi is genuinely opposed to the death penalty, then he’s right to speak up. But I’m with Peretz on this one, despite feeling  uncomfortable about my double-standards. I’m glad we don’t routinely execute murderers in the UK (the Japanese hanged four convicts over Christmas, in case you hadn’t heard) yet I do lean toward what you could call the Nuremberg Principle, i.e. some crimes are so heinous that only the ultimate penalty will do. (One of my all-time favourite books is Albert Speer’s prison diaries but if truth be told, the former Armaments Minister probably deserved to be hanged instead of being given 20 years.) In Saddam’s case, justice would have been best served if he’d been given a quick hearing by his fellow-Iraqis and then dispatched, Ceausescu-style. The trial in Baghdad became an ugly farce very early on.

Bronwen Maddox states the opposite view in today’s London Times:

The rapid confirmation of the death sentence against Saddam Hussein is a long step backwards for Iraq. It is a brutal, if inevitable, display of victor’s justice that offends the principles that the US said it sought to uphold in toppling Iraq’s dictator.

BTW, Peretz also has a good post on Tony Blair’s dodgy holidaying habits and his taste for schmoozing with the super-rich. That’s one side of TB’s character which has always baffled me.

[Photo: AFP]

[Clive]

And then there are the end-of-year performance targets to worry about. No wonder everyone’s so stressed:

In the past, companies would try to hold off making layoffs during the holiday season, but no longer. The fourth quarter has become the most common time for layoff announcements, said John Challenger, chief executive of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an outplacement firm. "There’s no stigma anymore."

[Clive]

Music by Brazil’s greatest songwriter, Antonio Carlos Jobim, performed by the ethereal trio of Japanese pop star Ryuichi Sakamoto, cellist Jaques [sic] Morelenbaum and his wife, Paula. Their tribute album, "Casa" was recorded in Jobim’s home in Rio. A gorgeous disc, as is the follow-up, "A Day in New York". Paula Morelenbaum’s singing is so simple, yet so evocative.

[Clive]

Whether or not many American viewers have had a chance to tune in, Al Jazeera’s English-language channel has got off to a surprisingly good start. I don’t watch it every day, but from what I’ve seen so far, the journalism is solid and sober, and the coverage of Third World issues has been refreshingly un-condescending. (To put it bluntly, you don’t often see brown people talking about other brown people on TV.) Samantha Bee, on the other hand, is as mad as hell and can’t take it any more. If you haven’t yet caught the Daily Show reporter’s mischief-making visit to the newsroom, you’re in for a treat. The funniest thing I’ve seen in months. [Via ‘Aqoul]

[Clive]

It’s the turn of Jackie Danicki, American in London, libertarian blogger and all-round live-wire, who also finds time to run sites devoted to food, health and beauty. A new media consultant, she knows where all the bodies are buried in Silicon Valley:

Having rediscovered "The Color Purple", I struggled to reconcile the tale of individual struggle and triumph with the politics of author Alice Walker. How could a writer who created such harrowing accounts of suffering under the white racist and black patriarchal societies of the southern US proceed to count Fidel Castro as a friend and decry the "toxic culture" of globalization? How could a writer whose work celebrates the liberation of women feel such disgust for the very movement which is lifting so many African people out of poverty?

I know, I know: one should separate a writer’s politics from her work. Fortunately, the quality of "The Color Purple" is such that I was largely able to do just that for the duration of the story. It is staggering, captivating, and a complete contradiction.

[Clive]

A well-wisher writes:

Clive Davis, you are a pompous ass. Please stop posting so often. I may never come back if you continue your hourly regurgitations. We all understand Andrew is on vacation, stop using his space as your soapbox. Have a nice day.

Sorry, I’m just one of those compulsive linkers. Always have been. Besides, with any luck, my co-bloggers will be back soon.