Monthly Archives: August 2005

A Plan B for Iraq?

Rumsfeld and Saddam in happier times: Washington backed the Baathists to stem Iranian influence It must be hard for anyone reading the daily media in the U.S. to comprehend the political catastrophe that has befallen the Bush administration’s Iraq plans. … Continue reading

Posted in Featured Analysis, Situation Report | 4 Comments

Impostor #1: Tikka Goes to India

Back in the heyday of the dearly departed Anglo-Japanese food culture magazine Eat, I wrote a regular monthly brief (among other things) identifying dishes that profess a false “nationality.” Herewith, the first entry, on Chicken Tikka Masala, Britain’s national dish: … Continue reading

Posted in Cuisine | 6 Comments

They Can’t Be Serious #2: Karen Hughes’s New Assignment

So seriously does the Bush administration take the task of winning over Muslim public opinion that it has dragged the president’s top media flak, Karen Hughes, out of retirement and named her Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy — a … Continue reading

Posted in 99c Blogging | 4 Comments

Who Wants to Go to Chelsea?

Jose Mourinho said a funny thing last week. Asked to defend his 23 million pound acquisition of Michael Essien from Lyon, he said paying that kind of money was simply the new reality of the game. Unusually for a braggart … Continue reading

Posted in Glancing Headers | 4 Comments

War in Context

Five reasons why you should read (and donate to!) Paul Woodward’s site War in Context. 1. Not simply becaus he regularly points to my stuff and sends this web site loads of smart, critical and in some cases influential readers. … Continue reading

Posted in Shameless Cronyism | 5 Comments

Iraq: Be Careful of What You Wish For

Khalilzad gets his marching orders 1. The Bush administration only has itself to blame for any sense of disappointment or setback that may follow the failure of Iraq’s parliament to approve a new constitution by the August 15 deadline. After … Continue reading

Posted in Situation Report | 5 Comments

Chowhounding With Jim

Originally published three years ago in the sadly now-defunct Japanese food-culture magazine Eat Like the celestial creatures for which it is named, Angel’s Share is invisible even to the patrons of the unremarkable East Village sushi bar in which it … Continue reading

Posted in Cuisine | 8 Comments

Can Chelsea Be Beaten?

Well in, Stevie! Yes, of course they can. We (Liverpool FC) proved that in one of the most important games of the season for both teams — forgive the crass associations, but it looked rather a lot like New Labor … Continue reading

Posted in Glancing Headers | 9 Comments

Getting Used to a Nuclear Iran

President Bush may reassure himself that “the world is coalescing around the notion that the Iranians should not have the means and the wherewithal to be able to develop a nuclear weapon,” but the more pertinent question is whether the … Continue reading

Posted in Featured Analysis, Situation Report | 4 Comments

What McDonalds Can Learn from Ford and the Vatican

Why burn the stars and stripes these days when the more transcendent – and ubiquitous – symbols of all things American these days are the Nike swoosh or the golden arches of McDonalds? A dwindling coterie of Iranian firebrands may … Continue reading

Posted in Annals of Globalization | 13 Comments