Bridge this Partisan Divide - Iraq Victory Gardens Coffee Notes: Bipartisan Victory Gardens for Iraq Republicans for Kerry?. Ok, maybe not, but at least Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) doesn't think it fitting to slander John Kerry with misdirection and misinformation. Update 3/22: Another Republican, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska), has now come to Kerry's defense,saying that the Bush Administration is misleading the American public (again) in their characterizations of John Kerry. Full story here....  [East Bay Kerry] A Republican veep would be good. Joe Biden on Hardball: Biden Endorses a Fusion Ticket Tom Brokaw's How the Home Front can Help Tom Friedman's The Home Team Truthout's Editorial? Bookcrossing: Books for Iraq. 5:37:59 PM    comment []

New Yorker Road Map? Good, another recommendation: Remembering the Wayward Pressman. The New Yorker marks the centennial birthday of the late A.J. Liebling, a writer whom I regard as the funniest American journalist of all time. [Workbench] I will add that to the list. A few weeks back I read and liked John Robb's recommendation: Contract Sport (at least I think it was John Robb who recommended it...). I am new to The New Yorker; my parents gave all of us a subscription at Christmas. This past weekend I asked my dad what he liked in this issue. I tried to express my hurdles with this magazine -- it has a different rhythm than any other magazine I get, and can't quite get a way to approach it week to week (IOW not front to back). My question, which he heard as "what should I read in this issue," was actually "how should I read this thing"? Dad reads it this way: Start with The Talk of the Town. Next read the movie reviews (or maybe he meant the featured movie review. This week would be Anthony Lane's review of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"). Then he moves onto authors he likes. From the March 22 issue, he marked: Kathy Gannon: Letter from Afghanistan, Andy Borowitz (Shouts & Murmurs), Jeffrey Toobin: Annals of Law, Alice Munro (Fiction), and Adam Gopnik: A Critic at Large, and Anthony Lane's review. The only N.Y. writer I know is the guy with the glasses who lost some cash in the dotcom boom then wrote a book about it (what was his name? He reviews movies, I saw him on Charlie Rose...). So here's an Andy Rooney-like nitpicking observation: how many titles does each article have in this damn thing? Dad marked Kathy Gannon's article, so do I refer to it as "Letter from Afghanistan"? Maybe that is that the name of her column, and this installment is titled "Road Rage," is that it? Is "Letter From" a section (kind of like the chron has Datebook) where Ms Gannon happens to be this week's author??? Anyone know of a Dummies book titled something like: "'The New Yorker' & Other Literary Rags - A Guide for White Trash Readers"? 3:54:20 PM    comment []