It seems that the only thing more massively ineffective than all the various “Wars on X” that Americans love so much (Crime, Cancer, Terrorism) is any effort to end another–frequently undeclared–War.  I’m thinking of a flyer I saw the other day urging people to gather somewhere earnest in the Mission and stop the War on [...]

The last time Massachusetts elected a Republican to the Senate was in 1966, the Thermidorian Reaction against LBJ’s Great Society.  Forty-four years ago, that man was Edward Brooke, the first popularly elected African American Senator.  He was a liberal Republican, the first in the party to urge Nixon to resign, and he had sex with [...]

I don’t really think much matters from the elections today.  (I voted, in San Francisco, and at a little after twelve noon I was only the 14th person to cast a ballot at the polling station, which admittedly isn’t in a very residential area, but the collectively trilingual poll workers were actually napping).  Certainly very [...]

What is the deal with David Brooks?  I think it’s time to coin a groaner, and that would be “self-hating elitist.”  I generally think the appellation “self-hating” says more about the designator than the designee.  But I don’t know what to make of someone who’s a (somehow) well-regarded, highly-compensated pundit with a very prominent perch [...]