Writing in the Times on Friday, Clyde Haberman notes that only two Africans have been given the red carpet treatment at New York’s City Hall in the past twenty years: Nelson Mandela (1990) and Robert Mugabe (2002).

The man who was responsible for Mugabe’s reception in New York at a time when white farmers, and their black farmworkers, were being attacked and driven from the land was city councilman Charles Barron.

It’s easy to see why Barron, a controversial black rights activist and former Black Panther, would choose to overlook Mugabe’s attack on white Zimbabweans in 2002. (Even if that attack did lead to the suffering of countless black Zimbabweans.)

But what about now, as Mugabe tramples Zimbabwean democracy? Has he had a change of heart? Apparently not:

“Does he do things that I disagree with? Yes,” Mr. Barron said. But he clearly still regards Mr. Mugabe as a liberator more than an oppressor. “You didn’t care about black Africans when whites were killing them in Rhodesia,” he said. As he sees it, the real reason that Mr. Mugabe has come under strong attack from the West is the confiscation of white-owned farms.

Echoing Mr. Mugabe’s party line, he suggested that Mr. Tsvangirai is a tool of “British imperialism and the United States as well.” As for political violence, “I don’t think we can deny people are dying,” Mr. Barron said. “Who’s responsible and how many — we need to really get reports other than from the opposition.”

Related:
The Day Robert Mugabe Was Greeted at City Hall (NYT)
Mugabe Is Sworn In for 6th Term After Discredited Vote (NYT)

I interviewed gaming tycoon Sheldon Adelson a couple of years ago when I was working on All The Money in the World: How the Forbes 400 Make—And Spend—Their Fortunes.

Adelson is certainly one of the more pugnacious billionaires I met during that project. Something tells me he will not be too pleased with Connie Bruck’s lengthy and merciless portrayal in the latest issue of The New Yorker.

When Adelson was merely rich, he wrote checks for causes that he favored and for politicians whom he supported. Occasionally, he demanded to be heard. But he did not expect to play a significant role in U.S. foreign policy, or in Israel’s strategic decisions, or in the fate of a sitting Israeli Prime Minister. That was before he acquired many billions of dollars. (He has assets of twenty-six billion dollars, according to a Forbes list published in March.) His political expenditures and his expectations have increased proportionately. Not long after [President] Bush’s encounter with Adelson last October, an Israeli government representative said that Bush, describing it to another Israeli official, had remarked wryly, “I had this crazy Jewish billionaire, yelling at me.” (The Israeli official does not recall the conversation; the White House said that it had no comment.)

Related
The Brass Ring (TNY)

Sorry for the lack of action around here lately. Take your pick of excuses: deadlines, writing fatigue (I’m almost halfway through a book), a succession of houseguests, a throat infection, the heat. You name it.

I would announce a blogging hiatus if it wasn’t for the fact that every time I have considered putting this blog to sleep over the past few years I have resumed frenetic blogging within a matter of weeks.

The picture, by the way, is the 175′ megayacht Kisses, which Sofie and I gawked at while slurping ice creams in Sag Harbor, Long Island, the other week with my parents. Pretty impressive, as long as it’s not moored alongside Larry Ellison’s Rising Sun.

• Smoking, Drinking, Writing, Womanizing, Smoking, Drinking… – Mad Men – Television – NYTimes.com
  A wonderful feature on the man behind Mad Men.
  (tags: television)

• Has modern life killed the semicolon?
  (tags: Grammar)

• The Chelsea, Now Hiring
  The New York Observer asks who would want to manage the hotel equivalent of ‘the quagmire in Iraq’?
  (tags: Hotel-Chelsea)

New York Magazine’s Daily Intel blog warns Europeans that the more they cheer for Barack Obama, the greater the chance he will lose:

The Americans who would listen to the advice of Western Europe are the ones who listen to the BBC feed on NPR in the morning for their international news and opinion — in other words, the people who are already going to vote for Obama. The people who he is trying to win over at this very moment, as he campaigns in the red states, are the ones who will view a European endorsement as a total minus. Remember when there was a movement to rename French Fries “Freedom Fries” over here? Yeah, it’s those people who will be alienated by your support. Frankly, they think you’re a bunch of Socialist sissies.

Related:
Hey Europe, You Want to Get Barack Obama Elected? Then Shut Up (Daily Intel)

Bo Diddley (December 30, 1928 – June 2, 2008)

Related:
Bo Diddley, Who Gave Rock His Beat, Dies at 79 (NYT)