We live in the age of managed expectations — of projected outcomes and likely damage. It will be some days before the actual effects of the tropical storm absurdly named Sandy are computer-assessed, news-reported and blog- and Twitter-dissected. And debated too, one suspects. Already some wonder whether Sandy is this year’s ‘October surprise’, meaning, in
According to Richard M. Cook, who is Alfred Kazin’s biographer as well as the editor of his journals, the nearly 600 pages of entries assembled in this book represent only one sixth of the total mass Kazin deposited in the archives of the New York Public Library. According to Richard M. Cook, who is Alfred
It seemed a classic diplomatic faux pas — the sort that begins in mutual embarrassment and soon descends into ominous bristling and then open recrimination. On 9 March, Vice President Joseph Biden, in Jerusalem on a mission to revive peace talks between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Palestinians, made the expected pledge of ongoing
