The New Yorker 24 & 31 December 2018

Elementary  by Bill Blitt

Barry Blitt (1958) . He is a Canadian-born American artist. Blitt creates his works in traditional pen and ink, as well as watercolors.

1. Cover:     Robert Mueller…..the most mysterious man in Washington!
2. Mueller’s inquiry has been at once expanding and narrowing,
3. ...gaining steam and losing momentum, intensifying and wrapping up!
   
4. Mueller has kept virtually silent about where his investigation is going.
5. This mystery is the  result of Mueller’s sharpest tactical decisions
6. …setting off parts of his investigation to multiple U.S. attorneys’ offices
7. …up and down the Eastern Seaboard.
8. #SoftCollusion?    #HardCollusion?      #NoColusion?

1. Jeffrey Toobin – Trump’s Red Line
2. Article about Adam Schiff (Democrat)…a person to watch in the coming years.
3. He is per 01.01 2019 Chairman Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
4. Schiff is investigating Trump.
5. Is his Presidency a vehicle for advancing his business interests?
6. Be ready to watch the sparks fly….again!
7. Presidential candidate 2020 ?…Adam Schiff

1. Ben Taub – is an American journalist. In 2017, he won a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award
2. and a George Polk Award.
3. Shallow Graves – Gruesome report of the aftermath killings after the fall of Mosul 2016-2017. Taub reveals that Iraqi government
4. …claims numerous civilian massacres occurred at the hands of ISIS…
5. when in fact Iraqi state-sponsored umbrella organization (Hashd Al-Sha’abi) did the killings.
6. The Iraqi government has sought to minimize attention to such atrocities.
7. Now Trump is visiting US troops who are (still) in Iraq.
8. BREAKING:
9. Several political parties in #Iraq have released statements condemning Trump’s visit and
10. ….calling for an emergency session in parliament to discuss
11. the acceleration of legislation to evict American forces from the country.
12. #NeverEnding conflict in Iraq!

BREAKING!  Ben Taub wins Pulitzer Prize 2020 for reporting!

 Guantanamo’s Darkest Secret  April 2019

Pulitzer Prize:

Ben Taub of The New Yorker

Mr. Taub, who joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in 2017, told the harrowing story of Mohamedou Salahi, an engineer who was accused of aiding Al Qaeda and spent 15 years at the United States detention camp in Guantánamo Bay. There, Salahi was tortured and interrogated, even as he maintained his innocence and insisted he did not hold extremist views. By turns compassionate and investigative, Mr. Taub entwined his exploration of Salahi’s plight with a broader examination of America’s years long war on terrorism.

Finalists Chloé Cooper Jones, freelance reporter, The Verge; Ellen Barry of The New York Times; Nestor Ramos of The Boston Globe

1. Adam Gopnik (Book critic) – How café culture created modern liberalism
2. Unlike the synagogue, the house of study, the community center, or the Jewish deli, the café is rarely considered a Jewish space.
3. Yet, coffeehouses profoundly influenced the creation of
4. …modern Jewish culture from the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries.
5. Shachar Pinsker (professor of Hebrew literature)
6. …discusses on the influence of cafés on modern Jewish culture.
7. Democracy was not made in the streets but among….the saucers!
8. Irony: we all go to coffee shops
9. ….just like they did in Warsaw, Berlin and Vienna
10. …but today nobody talks.
11. You only hear the click/clack of laptop keyboards.
12. How…times have changed.
13. I’ve looked at this book….good for a VERY interested reader of Jewish literature
14. …but I found it difficult to like.

1. Emily Nussbaum  (TV critic) – The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel –
2. Pulitzer Prize winner Nussbaum is not impressed with this show.
3. She even opened her heart for season 2.
4. People change, shows change, critics change.

1. Vinson Cunningham (Theatre critic)
2. Slave Play  – provocative and explosive new play,
3. …Jeremy O. Harris rips apart history to shed new light
4. on race, gender and sexuality in 21st century America.
5. and To Kill a Mockingbird (classic by Harper Lee)
   
6. …play by Aaron Sorkin.
7. I read both reviews and believe
8. …Vinson Cunningham is a master of writing reviews
9. …but masking this true feelings.
10. He is person in control of his tone.
11. Sometimes the critic can only highlight items in the performances.
12. The reader must decode Cunningham’s thoughts
13. …and decide  if the play is worth the time and ticket fee.
14. Cunningham has a unique polished writing style!