Новости за 11.07.2016

Supreme Court Justice and liberal lioness Ruth Bader Ginsburg granted press interviews in her chambers last Friday, a rare-ish event that’s been making waves because the 83-year-old jurist twice said she would basically prefer to imagine a world without Donald Trump as president. And I dig that too, for I also would not like to imagine a world in which a golf course-building xenophobe who has “forced his pathetic assemblage of voters, political enablers, and media hangers-on to debase themselves,” is the one making big, American decisions. Читать дальше...

Of the myriad ways in which Donald Trump has forced his pathetic assemblage of voters, political enablers, and media hangers-on to debase themselves, surely nothing has been so pitiful as the recent apologetics offered by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. In a piece for The New York Observer—which he owns—titled “The Donald Trump I Know,” Kushner began by declaring, “My father-in-law is not an anti-Semite.” Displaying the sort of defensive rationalization employed by people who feel a need to preface... Читать дальше...

At the ripe old age of 22, Aly Raisman, reportedly nicknamed “Grandma” by her teammates, is headed back to the Olympics . She becomes the first female Jewish gymnast to compete in back-to-back Olympics since Kerri Strug (’92, ’96). At the London Olympics in 2012, Raisman, a native of Needham, Massachusetts, earned gold for her unforgettable performance in the floor exercise.

I ruined last Friday night’s Bob Dylan concert for myself during the subway ride out to Forest Hills Stadium in Queens, New York, when I looked up recent set lists and learned that the last two months of Dylan shows have played out exactly the same. On the bright side, Dylan is famous for slaughtering his own material live, and I figured it would be helpful to be able to know exactly what he was playing at a given time. On the other hand—what the hell?! What a pre-Internet-age move, reproducing... Читать дальше...

Monday’s Major League Baseball’s Home Run Derby is a gift for anybody who’s a fan of ESPN’s Chris Berman bleating, “BACKBACKBACKBACKBACKBACK…. GONE!” every time someone hits a dinger. For everyone else, there’s the All-Star Game tomorrow on Tuesday in beautiful San Diego, California, a city whose name origin is lost to history.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is “the most important organization affecting America’s relationship with Israel.” At least, the New York Times once described it as such. AIPAC proudly shares the accolade with anyone who peruses its website, and few if any sources seem to disagree. AIPAC claims to have achieved that status through the dogged pursuit of a simple strategy: cultivating bipartisan support for the declared agenda of Israel’s elected government.

In my family there’s a word with no known etymology. I’ve never heard anyone else use it; the Internet bears no traces of it. It came from the mouth of the patriarch, my father’s father, and tumbled down the generations.