Uncategorized

Oprah Windfall’s book club is back – now she is focusing on classics to turn into instant bestsellers: Oprah Winfrey (news) was sitting under an oak tree in California last summer, reading John Steinbeck’s “East of Eden” and loving it, when she realized that just telling a few friends about …

Forbes says if you can’t beat ’em, buy ’em: Once seemingly moribund, UHF-giant Paxson Communications has seen its stock nearly triple, from $2.10 in late March to a recent $6.25. Behind the sharp price increase: the Federal Communications Commission’s revamped media ownership rules, says Ronald Young, an analyst with Evergreen …

Stars popping up virtually like flowers in the spring, or weeds: The hottest spot for star-gazing these days? Try the cyberspace gaming realm. Virtual versions of stars such as Christina Aguilera, Method Man and Alex Trebek are popping up in video games, and it looks like a lot more digi-stars …

Nothing in this libertarian old-time religion sermon from the Cato Institute about the effects of media consolidation as let loose by the last media buying frenzy, nothing about the finite resources PUBLICLY owned and the responsibility for serving the public good, nothing about the disappearance of localism other than to …

New AOL radio ad deal erases the line between editorial and advertising: A $15 million advertising and promotional deal between Viacom’s Infinity Broadcasting Corp. and struggling online service America Online is raising hackles as some radio staffers perceive a breach of the separation between editorial and advertising content. The deal, …

A few weeks before the FCC media ownership vote, William Safire inveighed against loosening the ownership restrictions. He’s still at it: John McCain, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, was also startled by the public reaction to the Floodgate scandal: “750,000 people sent messages to the F.C.C.,” McCain tells me. …

The most remote country in the world? Bhutan, which didn’t have public hospitals, schools, paper currency, roads or electricity until the 1950s, no diplomatic relations with any other country until 1961, and the first invited western visitors came in 1974, for the coronation of the Dragon King Jigme Singye Wangchuc. …

So we finally are back from the visit to the doctor’s office. Dawn and I arrived at the OB factory promptly at 10:30. There were at least ten people in the waiting room of the large baby consortium. Multiple doctors, nurses, billers, schedulers, attendants and funtionaries milled about beyond the …

I’m back and way too tired to do anything of note. I will say this: it is a fine thing to spend time with all your far-flung children on Father’s Day – spent the day down in Columbus with the oldest and the youngest, and when the youngest and I …

Another historian comprehends the danger of fanatical Islamoterrorism: Walter Laqueur – a deeply learned polyglot historian, whose expertise ranges from 19th-century Germany to 20th-century Egypt – has for decades stood out as one of the very few sober and intelligent voices in this undistinguished crowd. His latest book, “No End …