Is this New Yorker cover funny? How about this mock Time cover of Bush?I was reading the new edition of the New Yorker on the M15 bus this morning, going down Second Avenue. It was the New Yorker with the depiction of Senator Obama in Muslim clothes and his wife as a terrorist--a source of much controversy this week. The article I was reading was the leader in which Hendrik Hertzberg defends Obama'...

I spoke this morning with Joseph Quinlan, Chief Market Strategist of Bank of America Capital Management here in New York. Our conversation touched on a range of issues including: the Irish economic downturn, inflation, the Fed, oil prices and the credit crunch.Here's some of what he had to say.On Alan Greenspan:This is his mess. He created this and he's in some ways trying to rewrite history right...

The tracks on rapper Emmanuel Jal's major label debut, WARchild, are a bit frenetic, drawing more inspiration from the syncopated rhythms of African pop than the beat-heavy ethic of American hip-hop. The reason is simple: Jal isn't a product of the concrete jungle, but the actual one.A native of southern Sudan, Jal was forced into the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) at the age of six. Afte...

$52 billion bottles of beer on the wall...Anheuser-Busch, the American brewer of Budweiser ("the American lager") has agreed to be bought by Belgium-based brewer InBev for $52 billion, creating the largest beer company in the world. The deal has faced some backlash already in the United States. But I can think of a few bright spots:One is that some argue that AB, as a family business, may be able t...

How can we best understand the current international system? Is it America in decline... a post-America world... world without the west... second world... rise of the rest... return of the rest... new Asian hemisphere...pluralistic hegemony... flat world? I think of the world as having many layers and therefore centers of gravity. At the Carnegie Council, George Washington University professor Harr...