Category Archives: Current Events

Since I said I wasn't sure who I was going to vote for in the Democratic primary, a number of different e-mailers sent me off to read this article by Chris Durang. It makes a pretty strong case for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton and darn near convinces me.

Fred Kaplan reviews the State of the Union address given last night by George W. Bush.

Don't you feel smart? Rudy Giuliani has spent more than $30 million dollars trying to become President of the United States. You've spent nothing and you have almost the same chance that he does.

Say what you will about Alan Keyes but he's only spent about ten grand to not have a prayer in this race.

Fred Kaplan says that the only way our Army is able to keep its recruiting numbers up is by lowering its standards. Pretty soon, you'll be able to get into the Army if your I.Q. is higher than your inseam measure. Just as long as you aren't gay.

Ezra Klein on why the 1994 Clinton plan for Universal Health Care failed…and why a new one might not. I suspect a big reason is that in 1994, health care in this country was merely way, way overpriced…and now it's worse.

Hey, what's Jimmy Breslin up to, these days?

Allison Silberberg tells the history of how Martin Luther King Day became a real holiday. This is quite a story…and be sure you click on some of the links which will take you to newspaper articles of the time. Thanks to Kerry Frey for a great suggestion.

Back when he used to be on Saturday Night Live, they described A. Whitney Brown as "One of the great pontificators of our time." He's still at it, explaining here why he became a John Edwards supporter and here why he's giving up on the guy. Thanks, Robert Spina, for telling me these were up.

The New York Times has a profile of WGA President Patric Verrone and David Young, the Guild's Executive Director. For some reason, the author of the piece does not seem to be aware of Mr. Young's title.

For the record, I think Patric Verrone, David Young and the other organizers have done a magnificent job of running the negotiation. I don't think they've made any significant mistakes. What I do think is that the AMPTP was just determined to try and get the WGA to accept a rotten deal and, when they couldn't make that happen, they shoved us aside and went to negotiate with the DGA.

There's an unfortunate tendency in Hollywood — and it's in full flower in the Writers Guild — that when things don't turn out the way we like, people leap to say, "You should have handled things differently." But in this case, I haven't heard anyone suggest anything that the Guild could have done to prevent this strike and the collapse of negotiations. (Well, I suppose we could have just taken a terrible deal…but then we'd have been stuck with a terrible deal and, three years from now, they'd have tried to force an even worse one on us and we'd have had an even worse strike then. When anyone does one of those summaries of how much the WGA gained and lost from this strike, they need to factor in the immutable fact that in show business, taking one poor deal always leads to another poor, usually worse deal.)

That said, I'm troubled by some issues relating to the Jay Leno situation. I've heard a lot about it but I don't think I've heard all sides so I'm reserving final judgment and for now, I'm just being troubled.

Finally, as an aside: The article quotes a number of people, including one Dennis Palumbo, described as a "screenwriter-turned-psychologist." When Mr. Palumbo toiled in the first of those professions, his partner was the author of this weblog and yes, this is quite unusual. All my other collaborators have gotten into gynecology.

Not that many of you are likely to feel otherwise but this new wave of attacks on John McCain's military record is just as shameful and factually-deficient as the one on John Kerry's. I am amazed at the number of people who think that our soldiers are sacred…but only up until the moment when they don't want to see one of them get elected. But then I'm also amazed at the number of folks who accuse anyone who questions the war's leadership of "hating the troops" but don't seem to care a whole lot if those troops are paid badly, don't have proper equipment or medical care, are killed needlessly, etc.

Fred Kaplan (Yeah, him again) writes about what's happening with our military and how a lot of good soldiers don't want to stay in it for very long.

My chum Robert Elisberg, whom I owe ribs, discusses the endgame in the battle 'twixt the WGA and the AMPTP.

Fred Kaplan with comments on George W. Bush's dismissal of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. This is all quite worrisome. Either all our nation's intelligence agencies are wrong or Bush is. Neither situation fills one with confidence about our nation's defense and foreign policies, does it?

If you're following the Presidential Primaries — and I could sure understand if you weren't — you might be interested in this list of when the upcoming ones occur and how many delegates are up for grabs in each. I have no opinions and no projections, other than to say it might be interesting if no one locked up their party's nomination before Convention Time and we had some months of brokering and dickering and dealing to get each low finisher to throw his or her support to someone within striking range. John Edwards might not be able to become the Democratic nominee but he might be able to decide who would be.

I really don't know who I like. No one very much. I'm still nursing the fantasy of other choices getting into the race but it sure doesn't look like that's going to happen.

Congressman Barney Frank on the political battles of the nineties.