| Latest Commentary: | Volume VI, Number 76 |
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Dems Consider Defunding Vice President’s Office -- Vice President Dick Cheney has a penchant for secrecy, which is hardly a secret itself. At present, his office is locked in a bureaucratic battle with the National Archives over the preservation of various documents. As part of this argument, the VP’s people have advanced the idea that his office is not actually part of the executive branch, and therefore, not subject to a presidential directive to cooperate with the Archives. To get Mr. Cheney’s attention, Congressman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) will offer an amendment to a bill this week that would remove the VP’s office from the $44 billion in executive branch spending. Not even Dick Cheney can operate without money.
Harman Wins Deputy Labour Leader Job -- Being the deputy leader of a British political party is about as useful as being Vice President of the United States (excluding Dick Cheney, the eminence noir, who is all together different). The main job is to turn up at funerals the top dog can’t bother with, and to inquire about said dog’s health every morning. So, quite why Harriet Harman wanted to be deputy leader of the Labour Party is unclear, but it does confirm her as a rising star in post-Blair Westminster. Blackstone’s IPO Leaves Money on the Table -- The Blackstone Group has been the belle of the ball on Wall Street the last couple of days. The private equity group sold off a 13.2% stake to the public last week. The bankers priced the deal at $31 a share, pulling in $4.13 billion for the owners and valuing the entire firm at about $33.5 billion. Co-founders Stephen Schwarzman and Peter Peterson pocketed hundreds of millions, and staff with shares undoubtedly had a good week-end. And it looks like the bankers priced the deal about $4 a share too low, earning themselves a hefty return. Cliff’s Shakespeare Riots Shines Spotlight on Early US Theatre -- President Harry S Truman once said, “The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know.” And this journal profoundly believes that there is no greater intellectual joy that learning something. Thus, Nigel Cliff’s The Shakespeare Riots: Revenge, Drama, and Death in Nineteenth-Century America  The Shakespeare Riots: Revenge, Drama, and Death in Nineteenth Century America is heartily recommended summer reading. A dusty tome of history it is not, but an exciting journey through a piece of American and British cultural heritage that never seems to have been taught in classrooms.
© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux. |
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