Maureen Dowd is back from vacation and her New York Times column is vintage. She frets over Obama's nomination of Tim Geithner for Treasury Secretary, and recites platitudes on the economy like "the end may be nigh." Really, Maureen? You are going with "nigh"? Wow.But for all her affectation, Dowd usually sneaks something worth knowing into her work. This latest column forced us to look up the Law of the Sea Treaty. In short, the agreement with the hysterically bad acronym, LOST, sets international rules for navigation, fishing and sea-floor mining rights. Proponents support it because of the strong environmental standards. Opponents think the treaty will make it harder for the US military to operate in international waters.
Like everyone else, Tom Friedman is weighing in on Gaza. (At least he is finally off China. The dire warnings about Sino-supremacy were getting a little old.) Friedman dissects what Israel did last summer in the Hezbollah war, and wonders if Israel's goal now in Gaza is to "educate or eradicate" Hamas. For all the armchair geopolitics by Friedman and everyone else, the Middle East always boils down to the same thing: Israel thinks it should exist. Most of it's neighbors disagree.
The news media made a huge, huge, huge deal about Obama having dinner with some conservative writers last night. Has our political discourse become so poisoned that it's newsworthy when a leader simply eats dinner with people he doesn't agree with? Yes. Yes, it has.
Osama bin Laden has released a new warning tape and no one cares. Just like Britney Spears, this guy gets less interesting with every comeback. Wired says that the terrorist (Osama, not Britney) bashes Bush, taunts Obama, insults Iran, Iraqi Shi'ites and the Saudis, calls for Jihad against Israel, and finally, takes a swipe at "media people" who "falsely give legitimacy to the representatives of the Crusaders." Okay. Wait. Bin Laden is mad at the media for supporting Valapariso athetics? That's just seems odd.Everybody's favorite Libertarian-lesbian pop culture critic is back in Salon. Camille Paglia, She offers her typically brazen answers to reader email; covering the Obama transition, climate change, Sarah Palin, a possible biological basis for homosexuality and Toni Braxton. Love her or hate her, love her and hate her, Paglia is fiercely intelligent, furiously well-read and writes precisely what she believes . We can use more of that.
