Author: GR

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How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy

Read investigative journalist Pishko’s carefully reported history, and you’ll appreciate how spot-on Jon Hamm’s evilly unlawful lawman Roy Tillman was in the 2023-24 season of the drama Fargo. One of Pishko’s archetypes is Arizona sheriff Mark Lamb, who proclaims to his constituents, “Sheriffs are the last line of defense in this country. We don’t work for anybody but you.” But that’s not really true: whether directly or not, and whether knowingly or not, he works for a network of extremist right-wing groups, most based in the West and grounded in the John Birch Society and its offshoots, “who all believed that the county sheriff was the only legitimate law enforcement.” Read more

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Was the ‘Worst Novelist in History’ In on the Joke?

Over the course of her career, [Amanda McKittrick] Ros became better and better at writing badly, and her popularity soared as a result. In this regard, she bears comparison with the New York socialite and singer Florence Foster Jenkins (1868–1944), whose operatic warbling was so popular that tickets for her show at Carnegie Hall sold out within two hours. Perhaps Ros was living in a permanent state of cognitive dissonance, or perhaps she accepted the ridicule as consolation for her fame. A more intriguing possibility is that she was engaged in an elaborate form of trolling. Read more

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How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World

In the spirit of Progressive Era muckrakers, Michel, an investigative journalist and author of American Kleptocracy, reveals the shamelessness, venality, and moral turpitude of those who work to influence federal legislators and the public in order to advance antidemocratic foreign interests. Read more

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Two Centuries After His Death, Why is Lord Byron Still Seductive?

“…the poet is mostly recalled in the context of the Byronic hero: a dark, brooding, sexy rebel, derived partly from Byron’s celebrity persona and also from his works, such as his autobiographical masterpiece, “Don Juan”. In England the bicentenary has been marked by new books and events. But many are also taking place abroad, in the countries that hosted his self-imposed exile. In Italy, where he wrote some of his greatest works, including “Don Juan”, he is claimed as something of a national poet. The Keats-Shelley House, at the foot of the Spanish Steps in Rome, is holding a year-long festival of readings, exhibitions and performances. Read more

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