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Woodward's essay on Deep Throat

Posted by Jason Raia on June 02, 2005

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Here's the link to Bob Woodward's essay. Discuss away.

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109th Bethlehem Bach Festival

When I was in sixth grade, I wanted to play the oboe. I have no idea why I wanted to play this obscure instrument. It's not sexy like the trumpet or the sax, and it's not quirky like the trombone or fun like the drums, but regardless the oboe was for me. (I never did play the oboe, but that is another story.) I think I knew intuitively what the oboe could do was special.
This weekend at the 109th Bethlehem Bach Festival in Pennsylvania I heard what might just be the very reason the oboe exists. Friday night, at Packer Memorial Church at Lehigh University, the Bach Choir of Bethlehem and the Bach Festival Orchestra, under the baton of veteran conductor and artistic director Greg Funfgeld, gave us Songs of Joy, including Bach's Easter Oratorio BWV 249. In the second movement, an unusual second orchestral sinfonia before the joyous aria, is centered on a mournful oboe solo. It reminds us that Christ has died and lies within the tomb, the perfect counterpoint to the bright,…

Sharon Kay Penman's A King's Ransom

Richard the Lionheart, King of England, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Count of Poitou and Anjou was the very definition of foolhardy. At the approach of his death (no this is not a spoiler as he died in 1199), I found myself angry with the great king for the reckless behavior that ended his life after only a decade of rule. The promise of what could have been died that April day with the Lionheart. If there are moments where the future of the world changes, author Sharon Kay Penman makes you believe that this was one of them. Jerusalem might have been returned to Christian rule had Richard returned to the Holy Land, and if he ruled long into old age, as his mother Eleanor of Aquitaine did, the Magna Carta forced on King John in 1215 at Runnymede would have been unnecessary, and thus even American democracy might have been affected by the Lionheart.
My anger was fleeting in response to A King's Ransom, for there is a deep and abiding sadness that permeates this biography of King…

Jake Tapper's The Outpost

I have wanted to read Jake Tapper's The Outpost: An Unknown Story of America Valor for a while now. First, I like Jake Tapper, formerly of ABC and now on CNN; I think he is possibly the best Washington reporter in the American media today and his Twitter feed rocks. Second, though I have followed the war in Afghanistan pretty closely (including having friends who have served there), I still didn't feel I understood well enough. Finally, two Medal of Honor were awarded for service above and beyond the call of duty in that final epic battle at Combat Outpost Keating, and MOH recipients and their stories are always worth knowing.
In truth, The Outpost is the most compelling book I have read this year, possibly this century. Tapper takes the reader to the very beginning of this particular story of the war in Afghanistan, to the moment in 2006 when the Army made the decision to move into Nuristan, a ridiculously mountainous region of the Hindu Kush that borders Pakistan. The idea …

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