Peter Murmann

Jill Lapore reviews in the New Yorker a number of books that try to explain why the US is so violent in international comparison. Historians have shown that the murder rate in America has always been higher than in Western Europe. Why? Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky, who met three years ago in a Hartford drug-treatment [Read More]

David Brooks (NT Times) files this perceptive column in the wake of President Obama’s visit in China. When European settlers first came to North America, they saw flocks of geese so big that it took them 30 minutes to all take flight and forests that seemed to stretch to infinity. They came to two conclusions: that [Read More]

  And here is a bit of the drama behind the lone Republican vote courtesy of the Washington Post A vote to make or break a career Lone House Republican supported health bill after abortion limited By Perry Bacon Jr. Monday, November 9, 2009 When Republican Anh “Joseph” Cao won a stunning victory in a heavily Democratic district in New [Read More]

In a nanosecond David lost his thumb, the one his mother painted with pine pitch when he was four to keep him from forever sucking it. Unable to distinguish human flesh the McCormick silo filler sliced it off— nail, bone, knuckle— and blew it skyward an ounce of humanity in a thousand tons of silage. Taken by surprise David suppressed the truth. Before the rush of blood he held [Read More]

Today is Roseanne Barr’s birthday. Courtesy of the Writer’s Almanac, here are some of her good lines. Because [Roseanne] and her husband were short on money, she took a job outside the house, as a cocktail waitress. She began trying out her jokes, largely about the incompetence of the male species, and the people frequenting her [Read More]

  This is one of the best columns Frank Rich (NY Times) has written in a long time. I am not sure, however, if he does not exaggerate the decline of the media’s critical abilities. At the turn of the 20th century, America’s journalist were clearly not anywhere close to the role model that Rich [Read More]