The Return of History and the End of Dreams

Consider the natural history of the Detroit muscle car: The Mustang began life in 1963 as a stripped-down roadster in the European tradition. As the culture and market matured, Ford responded each year with ad hoc modifications and additions, so that by 1972, the same basic car had become a 3,300-pound, 375-horsepower V-8 behemoth.  read more »

Henry Kissinger loves the bloggers. Or at least one blogger, Karol Sheinin. She's got the lowdown on last night's dinner in celebration of Commentary Magazine.

In addition to collecting some fun photos, Karol picked up on a bit of news: The New York Sun's Ira Stoll said he'll be writing again for The Sun's political blog at some point.

More on Karol's night out is here.

On the morning of May 14th, a certain Dr. Henry Kissinger was remembering the time the late, great Patricia Taylor Buckley received a phone call at her house at about 8 a.m.

The hour, close friends like Dr. Kissinger knew, was far too early to be calling Mrs. Buckley from any place but a hospital.

When a voice on the other line explained that it was the President calling for her husband, William F. Buckley Jr., she shot back: “The president of what?”

Dr. Kissinger was with more than a hundred other mourners that morning at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Temple of Dendur who’d gathered for a service in honor of Bukley, who died last month at the age of 80.

The setting was fitting for a woman whom so many worshipped.

“We mortals need to be reminded of the finite nature of our scale,” Dr. Kissinger said. “The term ‘larger than life’ can be overused. In Pat’s case, it was an understatement.”

Reinaldo Herrera, husband of high-society fashion designer Carolina, briefly illustrated “the extraordinary fantasy world that Pat created” for her friends and family. She was, according to Mr. Herrera, as at home in the drawing room of a palace as she was in the kitchen, conversing with the “three Dominican ladies,” who cared for her affectionately for so many years.

Then, a few short remarks by the jeweler Kenneth Lane drew upon Mrs. Buckley’s incredible sense of style, which, Mr. Lane offered, was about a lot more than spending a fortune.

Caitlin Buckley, her granddaughter and the daughter of her surviving son Christopher, told a crowd that included Tom Wolfe and George Will about the woman she called “Nan,” who chided her for buttering rolls in mid-air and taught her the fine art of air-kissing.

Following a song by the Wiffenpoofs, Yale’s famed a capella troupe, Frederick Melhado, an investment banker and close friend to the Buckleys, recalled that in the final days of Mrs. Buckley’s life, he’d told his dying friend that he wished he had a magic wand.

At this, he said, Mrs. Buckley responded: “I know, but we all run out of magic wands, eventually.”

"There are not enough minorities." The players tend to be "middle class, suburban children." A similar point was made here. And this was before Ghana's Draman stole the ball from the entitled-looking Claudio Reyna to score Ghana's first goal.

And here's from KT's bio: "By the time she graduated at 21, she had moved up to become Kissinger's personal research assistant, and one of the few female professionals at the White House."

"Between Weld and McFarland, he seems to be more of a power player in the GOP than Pataki! Who knew?"

The rule, standards editor Allan M. Siegal wrote in a staff e-mail, is meant "to level the playing field when we write about politics and public life, removing any suggestion of special authority that might attach to people who use a title that isn't relevant to the field in which they are working or competing."

And Henry Kissinger, Ph.D.? Is his title germane to his work?

"If Kissinger were in government service today, and teaching was not his primary occupation," Usnik continues, "he would be Mr. under our current rule, and we would not ask for a preference."

Number of appearances of selected honorifics in the two years prior to the new rule:

"Mr. Dean" 65 "Dr. Dean" 830

"Ms. Rice" 400 "Dr. Rice" 20

Some of his backers include Diane von Furstenberg and Ingrid Sischy, who are throwing a fundraiser for him in late March at von Furstenberg's meatpacking district studio. Of course, this support from Madison Avenue may not actually help him at the polls, considering that a few of his fundraisers aren't even eligible to vote because they're either British, registered Republicans, or unfamiliar with the position he's running for -- "Borough President? What is that?" said Mr. Giannelli, who matched a chocolate-brown velvet Paul Smith blazer with Adriano Goldschmied jeans. "Do they go to fashion shows?"