It’s been the buzz of blogging bees (and everyone else too); The Washington Post has been publishing a critique of the reign of Cheney. The first two parts are here and here . It’s a fascinating account which paints Cheney, Rumsfled, Gonzales & Yoo (Yoo Hoo? Do you remember Yoo, as the torture lawyer?) as prime bad guys with Rice & Powell as hapless fools.

Rick Perlstein’s plan for a path to progressive victory is in The Nation If you, as I, are planning to help progressives take control of the NYS Senate or the US as a whole, this is worth reading.

Since summer’s here, turn to Gotham Gazette’s summer reading list, which, I am half-sorry to say is not filled with action-adventure and chick lit.

Mayor Bloomberg’s possible presidential run is assessed by the New Yorker’s George Packer here Packer’s feel for the Bloomberg Mayoralty seems to be that “the Bloomberg administration has generally offered a model of nonpartisan good government.” My own sense is that, no protester, no civil libertarian, no person of color, no parent with a child in public school, no median or lower income person, no tenant, could have authored such a phrase; since Mr. Bloomberg’s administration has been so harsh to those New Yorkers. (most of us). The rich are different from you and me.

For searing indictments of Mr. Bush, Mr. Gonzales and their Department of Injustice, Scott Horton’s columns in Harpers’ blog have become a pleasure for lawyers and those interested in rekindling justice in our nation. Sunday’s however, should set Bush and Gonzales hair on fire. Do not omit reading Justice in Alabama.

Many parents are, as am I, obsessed with their children. We study their finger paintings, report cards and read educational and psychological studies (or least for me, boiled down versions of these studies.) on how children learn. The NY Times reports that birth order significantly affects IQ scores. First borns do better than second borns who do better than thirds. As I read it, this is a big deal less for the differences between earlier and later sibs (which is small) than for the possible mechanisms families which harm, in small ways,
younger children. The NY Times articles are here and here . So it turns out everything is our fault.

For myself, I've still reading Trollope's The Way We Live Now, as well about John Wilkes, an 18th Century English radical, censorship victim and hell-raiser who tormented early Hanoverian governments, wrote politcal tracts and a scandalously ribald parody of Pope's Essay on Man (Called the Essay on Woman; of which I have not yet found a copy, any suggestion appreciated).