Laurent Dubois, born in Brussels, tries to convey what he sees as the essence of the city: a population that’s 70 percent immigrant; an attitude that’s outward-looking and cosmopolitan, polyglot in language and culture. “While there are many deep divisions around class and ethnicity, this is a city now defined more than anything by its diversity,” Dubois writes.
Fred Kaplan argues that the marginalization of Muslim immigrants in Belgium is only part of the reason why the country has found itself under attack. “What distinguishes Brussels, as a target and a base for terrorists, has more to do with the limits of Belgium as a functioning state, a problem exacerbated by the limits of the EU as a cohesive political body,” Kaplan writes; because of these limits, the country’s intelligence services have found it impossible to cooperate effectively.
Is it really true that terror attacks like Tuesday’s in Belgium will scare voters into the arms of Donald Trump? Jamelle Bouie doesn’t think so. “Americans as a whole don’t see Trump as ready to defend the country,” Bouie writes. “There, thanks to a long (and accurate) reputation for hawkishness, Hillary Clinton has the advantage.”
Will Saletan looks at the speeches Trump and Clinton made to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on Monday and finds a deep ideological divide in their approach to terrorism. “We can’t escape terrorism, but we can decide how to deal with it,” Saletan writes. “In this year’s election, we face a choice between two ways of responding. One is tribalism. The other is values.”
Isaac Chotiner talked to Newt Gingrich about Trump:
Chotiner: Is there really nothing that worries you about this guy? The way he deals with reporters, his campaign manager, etc.? You are not at all worried he has authoritarian tendencies?
Gingrich: No. No. [Laughs.] Which part of that is supposed to bother me?
That his campaign manager may have assaulted a reporter?
Oh c’mon. Did you ever look at it?
I have looked at it, many times.
That’s an assault?
He grabbed her arm very hard.
[Sarcastically] He grabbed her arm very hard. OK.
Malik Taylor, known as Phife Dawg, an MC in the beloved hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest, is dead at 45. Jack Hamilton joins the music world in mourning the man: “One of the funniest rappers to ever touch a mic, an MC whose descriptions had the eclectic vividness of the best satirists … warm, generous, funny, relentlessly upbeat in the face of of trying circumstances.”
For fun: Rembert Browne’s 2013 exegesis of A Tribe Called Quest’s 1992 video “Scenario” is delicious.
Bo still can’t rap,
Rebecca
