On a visit to Houston, my client was kind enough to take me to a very nice South American restaurant. One of the items on the menu was the pollo camisado, or literally the shirted chicken (the “shirt” consisted of plantain chips.) I joked that Juan Peron's favourite dish would have been pollo descamisado, or …
Back to the 2CV
In the novel The Ten Weeks, both the heroine and her father drive variations of the Citroen 2CV, the latter the original and the former the Dyane. This form of "basic transportation" helped many Europeans to have a car--with ecologically friendly gas mileage--of any kind in the years after the devastation of World War II. …
John Kerry endorses Obama. He better hope he’s right.
John Kerry's endorsement of Obama is based on one of three things: Conviction he's the best. Anticipation he'll get the nomination, and thus reward Kerry for his endorsement. Revenge against some offence the Clinton's committed (and there are many Democrats who have grievances against them.) It would be foolish to assume that Hillary is down …
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Maybe She Took My Advice
Hillary Clinton's victory in New Hampshire is perhaps the result of the following: "I listened to you. And in the process, I found my own voice," Clinton told her victory rally. "Now, let's give America the kind of comeback New Hampshire has just given me." Or, put another way, she told the story like it …
Jaguar, Tata, and Role Reversal
One of the more interesting adventures my family business got itself into was my brother's two attempts to sell our pile driving equipment to an Indian shipyard. As he cruised the streets of Mumbai in the early 1980's, he inhaled the fumes of the Tata manufactured trucks, which were cleverly aimed at the level of …
Without a Soul? Takes One to Know One
Hillary says that Vladimir Putin "doesn't have a soul:" Speaking in Hampton this evening, Hillary Rodham Clinton said the president of Russia "doesn't have a soul." She was riffing on the danger of inexperience, and reliance on personal relationships, in foreign affairs, indirectly comparing Obama to George W. Bush, who notoriously looked into Vladimir Putin's …
Mike Huckabee and the Dilemma of American Conservatives
Mike Huckabee's version of "New Testament compassionate conservatism" may bother many on the right, but the positive feedback--in the form of events like the Iowa caucuses--is a sign of the Republicans' core problem in moving forward this election year. That problem, simply put, is that Americans in general are less and less willing to be …
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Tell The Story Like It Is…
Hillary Clinton's ignominious defeat in Iowa (and for that matter Mike Huckabee's win) are signs that we still have a competitive political system. Both parties have attempted "coronations" in this, the most open election year since World War II. But neither has worked. Clinton's is especially galling since she, more than any other Democrat candidate, …
Up From Bourgeois is Trickier Than It Looks
Wilfred McClay's article on the 80th "birthday" of Elmer Gantry is an interesting study, in no small measure because of the critical view he takes of Sinclair Lewis. That critical view is hard to find; Lewis of course won a Nobel Prize in 1930, was greatly influential in shaping liberal thought about Evangelical Christianity (including …
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The Ridiculous Analysis of Global Warming and the Right
Dave Lindorff's article Global Warming Will Save America from the Right...Eventually is ridiculous on a number of counts (leaving out the whole debate of the existence and pace of global warming): One of the first victims of sea rise would be South Florida, certainly a bastion of left-wing life and politics. Perhaps it's not an …
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Positive Infinity 