David Mamet is, the cover to his new book – The Disenlightenment: Politics, Horror and Entertainment – announces, “one of the foremost American playwrights.” The description is a bit too modest for Ben Shapiro, who tells us “David Mamet is America’s greatest living playwright and screenwriter.” He is also a Goddamned joy to read. In this slender book, the entire world-stage of the sad and despairing post-modern age – ours – forms the warp and woof of Mamet’s always entertaining romp through philosophy, philology and culture in an analysis bordering on trenchant political satire and cultural horror. One chapter of the book – “A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes” – is, among other things, an examination of a political and cultural con-game and the dangers of luxury, the lavish backyard pool in which many of America’s loftier critics swim. “A con game functions through exciting greed, the political-social con though assuaging fear.” This political writer w...
“Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity,” George Bernard Shaw once said. It would not have served Shaw’s peculiar political ambitions – Shaw was a Fabian Socialist – to emphasize that politics, most especially socialist politics, is a profession. Keith Phaneuf of CTMirror has been writing about state budgets and budget flimflammery for many years, but his latest offering – Budget cap workaround draws GOP ire -- merits public notice. The lede to his story is especially noteworthy: “State officials have underfunded key contractual obligations in Connecticut’s budget by hundreds of millions of dollars for the second consecutive year, knowing the rest of the plan will generate more than enough surplus to cover the problem.’ There is a purpose, Phaneuf points out, to the budget flimflammery: “This underfunding allows legislators to assign more dollars to education, municipal aid and other core programs without violating budget caps.” ...