And after we bomb Cambodia, I’ve instructed the National Guard to shoot four students at an Ohio college… Michael Smith, the London Sunday Times reporter who broke the story of the Downing Street memo has followed up with two more pieces. It seems, in his piece from last Sunday, that the Americans were bombing Iraq … Read more
One of the dumb things about the New Yorker’s website is that it is virtually impossible to find recently outdated articles. You can actually guess, by looking at the naming conventions, and discover that most of the content they have published on the site remains anchored in placid waters to a permanent URL. But the … Read more
All summer I’ve had a retired shop teacher in my skull, trying to teach himself to play the marimba. I liked it better when he stuck with hammers and power tools. I know my tongue’s tucked away somewhere in my face, but I can’t feel the damn thing. The world outside my windows looks like … Read more
Look, there’s not a bigger Tom Brunansky fan in all of Twins Territory, but this team’s in trouble and in dire need of some pop in the middle infield. So, as much as it pains me to say this, I think it might be time for Andy MacPhail to pull the trigger on that long-rumored … Read more
The body count our government doesn’t want us to remember I started to laugh today at David Brooks’s piece in the NY Times. But then the feeling turned more to nausea. According to Brooks, we shouldn’t run our Iraq policy based on polls that say most Americans think we should pull out. I couldn’t agree … Read more
Okay, honest to God, that’s just about enough of this nonsense. I believe we’ve reached the point where the bump in the road has officially turned into a rut, and it’s damn hard to explain what’s happening to this team right now. This is one of those times where you could point your finger in … Read more
Maybe it’s in the air, I dunno. But I’m hoping yesterday’s storms–seen to be literally a wall of brown out the windows of Bunker’s–cleared about ten days’ worth of bad karma. You know, an accumulation of weird breakdowns, bad communication, minor automotive hiccups, moving violations, unspeakable regression, birds gathering in strange symmetric formations on top … Read more
This guy comes in and says to me, “What’s your goal here? What’s the big idea?” He was a huge man, seriously overweight and clearly laboring to balance there before me at the counter. Moist, wheezing, one of these characters who’s always swiping at his forehead with a handkerchief, and something of a throwback, I … Read more
Sid Hartman’s in a bit of hot water over at the Strib, and we’re not talking jaccuzzi time. Sid is evidently of the opinion that certain silly ethics rules don’t apply to him–and it will be interesting to see how (or even whether) his editors manage to slap the old duffer’s wrists. Kate Parry is … Read more
–Illustration by James Dankert Sunday night –the worst handful of hours in the week– finds me a complete wreck, hoarse, hungover, and ruined by a weekend of stale air and even worse baseball. It doesn’t help matters that my attic apartment is so damn hot that I’ve spent the entire evening sprawled on the floor … Read more