Archives for March 2004

Gotta love the New York Press alternative weekly for its list of 50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers. Among those on the receiving end of its full-bore contempt are movie director Sofia Coppola (50), ad man Donny Deutsch (40), liberal pundit Eric Alterman (39), author James Frey (30), anchor woman Diane Sawyer (23), Dean of the […]

The American fondness for Alistair Cooke, whose death at 95 was reported yesterday by the BBC, seems to have no bounds. Appreciations praising his journalism — to say nothing of his charm, wit, intelligence and erudition — have appeared everywhere today, filling many column inches.  Like just about everybody else, I too have a sweet recollection […]

This morning The Wall Street Journal reported: “The federal Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund rejected an application from Mariane Pearl, widow of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter murdered in 2002 by Islamic extremists in Pakistan.” But she is still pressing her case, according to The New York Times. I long ago made the argument […]

Preaching to the choir has its rewards. Easy rewards — like a warm bath of egoism, the sort Miss Piggy takes when she preens in the mirror. It’s great to get feedback from readers, even when they agree with me. I admit it. John Keene, a man with impeccable judgment, was kind enough to drop […]

Let’s see if the Biblical flogmeister can make a movie out of “Psalm 2004,” now playing the email circuit: Bush is my shepherd,I shall be in want.He leadeth me beside the still factories,He maketh me to lie down on park benches,He restoreth my doubts about the Republican party,He guideth me onto the paths of unemployment […]

I don’t believe I’m Bradley the Buyer, “best narcotics agent in the industry,” as William Burroughs put it. But in a very polite way, Ed Ettel, a Straight Up reader, pretty much says I am in an email message, while he (without knowing it, I’m sure) is the District Supervisor who calls Bradley on the carpet. Mr. […]

We always knew David Remnick was an A.J. Liebling buff. He reminds us once again with “Reporting It All,” a sweet piece in the current issue of The New Yorker honoring the centennial of Liebling’s birth. The magazine has also put online from its archive a terrific piece by Liebling himself, “Ahab and Nemesis,” about the sweet […]

More was said by the stunned silence following Richard Clarke’s defense of his sworn testimony yesterday before the 9/11 commission than all his sobering words. Yet none of the reports that I have seen in the print press or on television has captured the impact of that moment, let alone mentioned it — — except, […]

Interested in the 9/11 Commission? Watch this morning’s hearing live now on C-SPAN3 on the Web. (If necessary, look for the third link down in the “Watch/Listen” box. You have the option of RealPlayer or Windows Media.) CIA Director George Tenet is testifying at the moment. Former Bush anti-terrorism czar Richard Clarke, who is under attack […]

Now we know why our Maximum Leader won’t testify under oath, privately or publicly, before the 9/11 Commission, as others are doing. It’s not because he wants the executive branch of the federal government to maintain a “separation of powers” between it and a 10-member panel partly appointed by the Congress. It’s because he wouldn’t know the truth if […]

From time to time we post the poesy of Leon Freilich, a rhyming punster from Brooklyn. Just to show we’re not completely illiterate, we searched the Web for a more avant-garde form of poesy (a word so quaint). Here tiz: A poem that keeps making the e-mail rounds and doesn’t rhyme. It was reportedly assembled […]

Dieter Roth, a great and prodigious artist who rebelled against the establishment, is too little appreciated in the United States. The only show of his I ever saw was at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago a couple of decades ago. But I’ve admired him for many years, ever since knowing some of his associates, […]

More poesy from Leon Freilich: THE RELENTLESS JAYSON BLAIR BOOK BLITZ Bliar, Bliar,“House on fire!”Give it a restAnd go retire. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

A reader from Florida, Shane Hockin, writes: “Thanks for the link regarding the [military] defense attorneys for the Guantanamo detainees. It was very interesting. I work for prosecutors, so it is not very often that I get to say something nice about defense attorneys, but those guys are what the system is all about. “I […]

With the Defense Department using emergency powers to extend active duty for a short-handed army in Iraq, it’s worth noting that the Pentagon may be “Oiling up the draft machine.” Legislation pending in the U.S. House and Senate — H.R. 163 and S.R. 89, identical bills introduced last year by Democrats and now quietly backed by the Bush administration — would re-institute […]

Paul Gigot, editor of The Wall Street Journal’s deeply, archly conservative editorial page — he’s known in the trade as Paul Giggly, or in some quarters as Paulie Giggles aka Paul Gidget — is probably gnashing his teeth over a reporting staff that keeps turning out uncomfortable stories that run counter to the editorials. In a stunner reported this morning by the Journal, the five U.S. military […]

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