With the opposition safely in the lead in early polls in Zimbabwe’s parliamentary elections, a team of international observers led by former Secretary of State James Baker and Congresswoman Katherine Harris (R-FL) have declared Zimbabwe’s elections to be “above-baord, free and fair”. Indeed, both Baker and Harris commented on the lack of allegations that voers of color were being denied access to the polls. President Mugabe dismissed allegations that exit polls showing a strong win by the opposition party or allegations that the voting process was not transparent are of any merit, noting that he considered whatever happens “a mandate...

Following the high-profile death of Theresa Schiavo, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay announced that, after unusually cordial discussions with House Minority Leader Nancy Schiavo, Senate Majority Leader Frist and Minority Leader Reid, a broad consensus had finally been reached on a variety of issues resulting from the high-profile (and unsuccessful) efforts to intervene in the legal case which, having determined that Ms. Schiavo’s own intention was to have all medical treatment including having a feeding tube withdrawn, resulted in her death yesterday morning. DeLay said that the “culture of life” had to mean a general respect for life. Specifically, DeLay...

The tag-line might relate to Congressman Jim Leach and Senator Charles Grassley, both Republicans of Iowa, who are expressing deep reservations as to the support for the President’s plans to decimate social security. This is further evidence in support of my proposition that we no longer need a Democratic Party– the Republicans are perfectly capable of assessing the political lines of no-return, and checking their own executive. God knows, the Dems can’t get it done. Which takes us back to the main topic: you know who, who as of 0930 local time on 31 March, still refuses to kick off....

While the world awaits the final demise of someone involved in major courtroom battles in a hospice, we were all looking in the wrong one on the wrong West Coast: Johnnie Cochran passed away at 67 in a hospice in California, of a brain tumor. (Apropos of not much, the Unseen Editor suggests you take a brief look at the biography of another lawyer, noting the interesting and salient interest in the penultimate paragraph.) What I will say about Johnnie Cochran may be one of the best compliments I am capable of giving: Johnnie was damned good at what he...

Such is the implicit theme of the opinion piece from Beijing’s People’s Daily that will constitute this week’s visit to the Eastasian metropole. Of course, the specific theme is most overt Japan-bashing, particularly over Japan’s determination to phase out development aid to China by 2008. Despite being a vibrant economic powerhouse running unbelievably huge trade surpluses with this country, China is still, in many ways, a desperately poor country which appreciates the foreign largesse it receives. The implication, of course, is that foreign aid should simply be guided by a spirit of pure generosity in the first instance, because ultimately...

And so, I guess, the cheering on the Upper West Side (and presumably in its companion locales like Berkeley, San Francisco, maybe Hollywood, places like that) is beginning to simmer to a joyful roar, as the combination of heel-digging by Caveman Judge Greer (liberals should know that their darling jurist is, by predilection, what would usually be considered a religious conservative, though his pastor kind of asked him to leave his church “because it would be better that way”) yielding to the wishes of… another caveman whose new paramour and mother of his two children wished to have his former...

A brief query on the now fading-fast Schiavo situation (Terri will doubtless be dead by early next week, which may set the Upper West Side into apoplectic joy). That query: given that Florida law expressly prohibits assisted suicides, how can Judge Greer not himself be in violation of that law by including an obscene provision in the order denying the Schindler family stay requests which not merely prohibits insertion of a feeding tube into Terri Schiavo, but prohibits all attempts to feed Terri food or water at all? More troubling still given that some nurses insist that with therapy (or...

Death of Anne Boleyn by Robert Lowell Summer hail flings crystals on the window- they wrapped the Lady Ann’s head in a white handerchief… To Wolsey, the nightcrow, but to Anthony Froude, stoic virtue spoke from her stubborn lips and chin- five adulteries in three years of marriage; the game was hotly charged. “I hear say I’ll not die till noon; I am very sorry therefore, I thought to be dead this hour and past my pain.” Her jailer told her that beheading was no pain- “It is subtle.” “I have a little neck,” she said, and put her hands...

My liberal brethren seem far more upset about efforts to avoid killing one woman in Florida than they were about stopping the God damned Iraq war (which, of course, has killed countless tens of thousands including over 1,500 Americans.) Certainly, I didn’t see this kind of uniformity of opinion mobilized to stop the war; I saw the likes of Dick Gephardt, for example, happily selling the rest of us out, while John Kerry and more Democratic senators than not were voting yea to the (still to this day) unjustified carnage. Indeed, I have never seen my liberal brethren this animated...

It saddens me to note the passing at 80 of famed New York cabaret singer Bobby Short. Mrs. TD and I saw Bobby Short, live at the Cafe Carlyle in the Carlyle Hotel, exactly twice. The first time was on Mrs. TD’s birthday just two weeks before the Loquacious Pup was born, and then precisely five years later (last November, actually) on another of Mrs. TD’s birthdays. (After the performance, Mrs. TD managed to track Bobby down, and had him autograph a c.d. for her.) Short was scheduled to retire, but was talked out of it, and went out the...