Because the United States looks a lot more like Ohio than like
Colorado. ...it is the closest state we have to a microcosm of the
nation

http://www.google.com/gwt/n?u=http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/84102/few-quibbles-galston

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"Coach Cronin told me before the game to reduce the play calling, be
aggressive and attack," Wright said, "just attack and attack and
attack. It made the game that much easier. I had to do less thinking
and more playing."

http://m.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110216/SPT0101/302160099/-1/WAP&template=wapart

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You go to India and you find all these inspiring people to look at.
You go to China and want to kill yourself. That's not very nice to say
but those people are taking over the resources of the planet and we
cannot do or say anything because they have all the cash.

http://www.hintmag.com/post/apcs-jean-touitou-speaks-his-mindand-then-some--february-09-2011

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During Vietnam, soldiers famously used a combination of dope and Jimi
Hendrix to chill out and psych up. Today's soldiers essentially listen
to both Prozac and Metallica to achieve the same balance. Drugs are
very much part of the program.

http://nymag.com/print/?/news/features/71277/

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In his view, Haggis's emotions at that moment ranked 1.1 on the Tone
Scale—the state that is sometimes called Covertly Hostile. By adopting
a tone just above it—Anger—Isham hoped to blast Haggis out of the
psychic place where he seemed to be lodged.

http://m.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_wright?currentPage=all

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it's delightfully easy to see through illusions held by people far
away or by members of one's own group a century ago or a decade ago or
a year ago. But this doesn't seem to help us to see through the
illusions which, at any given moment, happen to be shared by the
people who surround us, our friends, our family, the people we trust.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog//175350/

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Americans still care about politics, culture, and literature, despite
the temptations of new media, television, and whatever myriad
distractions presently on offer. Unfortunately, those concerns don't
seem to require Harper's as an arbiter of what's valuable, a critic of
what's wrong, an exemplar of comedic savagery, or (to borrow from
another endangered colleague) an opportunity for middlebrow
intellectual self-congratulation

http://www.dadwagon.com/2011/01/31/anyone-have-a-parachute-color-not-important/

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Nearly five years later, however, the hyperbole looks more like hubris.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/business/30charity.xml

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From 2003 to 2005, the Bush administration appeared to be serious
about democratic reform in Egypt: the 'freedom deficit' was seen as a
key reason for the frustration and anger of men such as Mohammed Atta
and Ayman Zawahiri – both Egyptians. Condoleezza Rice called for an
end to the Emergency Law at the American University of Cairo in 2005
and, in his 2005 State of the Union address, Bush declared that 'the
great and proud nation of Egypt, which showed the way toward peace in
the Middle East, can now show the way toward democracy.' While
continuing to avail themselves of Egypt's services in extraordinary
renditions, Bush and Rice embarked on a 'freedom agenda': for the
first time, Egyptian NGOs which hadn't been approved by the
authorities in Cairo received direct US grants, infuriating Mubarak.
The US was chastened, however, by the Muslim Brothers' success in the
2005 legislative elections. And that was just the beginning. With
Hamas's election in 2006, resistance and sectarian conflict in Iraq,
the spread of Iranian influence, and Hizbullah's strong performance in
the 2006 war with Israel, it was clear that the 'freedom agenda' was
backfiring in the rest of the region. Suddenly, the promotion of
reform in Egypt came to seem imprudent, and Washington remembered why
it had always appreciated Mubarak: his co-operation in the
Israeli-Palestinian theatre and the war on terror; his hostility to
Tehran; the precedence given to US warships seeking expedited passage
through the Suez Canal; the willingness to allow American planes to
refuel in secret at the West Cairo airbase on their way back to Iraq.
By the time the 2007 constitutional amendments were passed, the Bush
administration had reversed its course. The amendments, Rice said in
Cairo, were 'disappointing' but 'the process of reform is … going to
have its ups and downs.' Then she got to work: Palestine, Iran, Iraq.
The political conditions Congress had imposed on $100 million of the
$1.3 billion in military aid were waived by Rice, on the grounds that
US military ships needed to be able to go through the canal at short
notice.

Barack Obama, keen to break with Bush's messianic talk about spreading
democracy, has worked to rebuild trust with the Egyptian government.
In his speech in Cairo in June 2009, he spoke of his belief that all
people want 'government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the
people', and insisted that 'we will support them everywhere.' Yet he
has done little more than express mild criticism of Mubarak for
extending the Emergency Law, and his administration has reverted to
the pre-2004 position of reserving USAID funds for NGOs approved by
the Egyptians. Military aid, Robert Gates has made clear, will be
provided 'without conditions'.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n10/adam-shatz/mubaraks-last-breath

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