Uncategorized

Nice little bio of Cat Power in NY Times Magazine – she has a new CD reviewed here by our Jim Carruthers. like most every other song on Cat Power’s new album, ”You Are Free,” is about inquietude, balkiness, dread. Since its release in late February, ”You Are Free” has …

Ismail Hussain was an Iraqi pop star – Uday Hussein made him an offer he couldn’t refuse: In the 1990’s, you were a pop star in Iraq, and you were known as Uday Hussein’s favorite performer. How did you get involved with Saddam’s oldest son, who is known for his …

Steyn called this one two weeks ago, if he does say so himself: This war is over. The only question now is whether a new provisional government is installed before the BBC and The New York Times have finished running their exhaustive series on What Went Wrong with the Pentagon’s …

In today’s NY Times, David Edelstein acclaims Three Kings a great movie, and unambiguously anti-war: I agree with the former point. Obviously, the director David O. Russell meant it to be anti-war, but I came away from the film sickened not by the Gulf War – though I am disgusted …

Been watching the war on TV this afternoon – CNN (left-center), MSNBC (center-center except when that idiot Savage is on), FoxNews (triumphalist-right) – and the pictures are remarkable, driving with troops down the highway right through the middle of Baghdad, the shit-for-brains Iraqi Dis-Information Minister claiming the footage of Americans …

Pearl Jam speaks out on the impale-Bush-mask-at-concert incident: There were close to 12,000 people at the April 1st Denver show. It’s possible two dozen left during encore but it was not noticeable amongst the 11,976 who were loudly applauding and enjoying the evening’s music. It just made a better headline …

In follow-up to my Blogcritics review of Marvel’s recent hardback Daredevil books, I should note that Volume One of the “Marvel Knights” reprints has since been released. (For some reason – perhaps the more recent material was easier to cobble together? – the company rushed Volume Two out alongside the …

Like Christopher Hitchens, Nat Hentoff is a quirky leftist – for example Hentoff is anti-abortion – and like Hitchens Hentoff is pro-war, or at least anti anti-war: I participated in many demonstrations against the Vietnam War, including some civil disobedience – though I was careful not to catch the eyes …

Brian wrote very interesting and powerful testimony into the mindset of the Christian fundamentalism in which he was raised, or at least schooled. He also extrapolates that experience onto President Bush, which I would caution against as an exercise in projection. The fire and brimstone imagery of Christian fundamentalism is …

I love living in the Cleveland area – I really do. We have a great house in a safe area, my kids love their schools, we have room, great friends, the city is only about 40 minutes away. I like the woods and streams and farms (not many of those …