Jeffrey Goldberg's big piece about Israel bombing Iran or not, is of course the big story of the moment. Over at his blog, however, Jeffrey warns that:
I really do suggest that you subscribe to the magazine and read these sorts of stories in print, and not only because reading long articles on the Intertubes causes leprosy, while reading stories in print increases your chances of winning Powerball.Now it just so happens that I've got a subscription to The Atlantic, so I actually probably will wait a few days and read the article on paper; I'd rather not take the chance with the leprosey. So I'm linking, but have nothing intelligent to say.
Richard Cohen of the Washington Post disapproves of The Economist's ability not to see antisemitism. Ouch.
George Will, also of the Washington Post, compares Obama unfavorably with Netanyahu. Also ouch.
Netanyahu, his focus firmly on Iran, honors Churchill because he did not flinch from facts about gathering storms. Obama returned to the British Embassy in Washington the bust of Churchill that was in the Oval Office when he got there.Finally for the moment, David Horovitz has a new website, with a faintly ridiculous picture of Tony Blair. Ouch.
Jon Lee Anderson in the New Yorker about his visit to Teheran and his talk to Ahmadinejad impressed me a lot more than Goldberg's cobbled together into a piece blogposts.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/16/100816fa_fact_anderson
Also I have as of now a grudge at Goldberg because of his choice of words in this sentence:
"accelerating Israel’s conversion from a once-admired refuge for a persecuted people into a leper among nations."
I can't for the life of me not think of an occasion that might make me call something I love, like or respect a leper. But maybe they get to read different children's books these days and so the image of the unhappy ones having to walk on the streets calling "unrein"=unclean isn't vivid for them anymore.
As to the print copy of the Atlantic - Israelis must consider themselves to be lucky if they get theirs half way close to publication
- in Germany there were so often copies lost, such huge delays that after about 5 years of it I've had it and cancelled it. Not only took it just too much time but also their subscriber help desk is about the most sluggish and disinterested affair you can imagine and all that while used books from the US arrive without fail with lightening speed. Amazing isn't it? Could it be that the No 1 global player is interested in playing only in a very select number of countries while always insisting that they are the fastest, the best etc etc.
Silke
more from The Atlantic
ReplyDelete- Christopher Hitchens criticizes Wistrich and a bit less so Julius and British Anti-Semitism was and is still of the "benign" kind and never in danger of becoming less so and all that proves that it is all the fault of religion and since it is we are all equally in danger from it - i.e. he sings the stop the hysteria song.
- anyway that's how I read it and I also remember that he defends Edward Said given the opportunity, not in this piece but elsewhere and there sorry to say my own ears told me a very different story
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1969/12/chosen/8173/
Silke
Is it me or is David Horovitz looking increasingly haggard? Fancy interviewing Obama wearing designer stubble...
ReplyDeleteThe choleric nincompoop is 'better' than the black Jimmy Carter? Maybe sometimes. But the low caliber of both our heads of state is a real problem for both our countries.
ReplyDeleteBruce
Light Summer Listening and a "must" for everybody interested in leaking and the writing of history.
ReplyDelete(he doesn't mention Wikileaks but I've concluded that Assange is damaging the writing of history about our time in the near and distant future)
here is a BBC article about the lecture
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10338038
and here is the National Archives Link to the audio
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/candour-in-government.mp3?pod=rss
and here is for the so inclined the iTunes link
http://itunes.apple.com/de/podcast/disclosure-documentary-release/id208318433?i=84728353
Jonathan Sumption's specialty is midieval history and I've never heard his take against leaking anywhere else and he left me with one (socialist) question: How to remedy the fact that when secrecy on Bletchley Park was lifted it seems that only "big" ones made a buck out of it.
Silke
Indeed, Jeffrey Goldberg describes precisely why Israel should give up right now.
ReplyDeleteCall it quits.
Pack the bags.
Go home.
Charming fellow, though, even if while channelling the Iranian regime superbly, he gets things upside down and backwards, even though he has the occasional odd conviction regarding what is right and wrong, and even though his sense of humor, to this reader at least, is growing increasingly tiresome.
Moreover, he seems to believe that the Obama administration is still an ally of the Jewish State. Well, to each his own delusions....
As for anti-semitism in Britain, one either doesn't want to see it or one doesn't care enough; or one is putting absolute faith in one's own delusions (understandably, of course); or one doesn't want to rock the boat, which is already listing dramatically. (Indeed, England seems to have run out of little boys who can see the Truth for what it is....)
(Problem is we've been there, done that; and the results are, um, less than successful.)
Regarding Truth, Julian Assange's is of the kind that was embraced by the Oxford Union in 1933. One fears it will have the same results.
Not him, though. The Absolutely Moral have no such qualms.