It was ’60s and ’70s hard rock. Jason Keyser, the AP reporter who filed the news story from Falluja that U.S. troops challenged insurgents to come out and fight by blasting rock music at them, identified AC/DC and Jimi Hendrix as the artists whose music they used.  That at least shows excellent taste and probably that the troops […]

Wrapping the week: U.S. troops reportedly blasted rock music at the insurgents in Falluja to provoke them into a fight. Now that’s an idea that Rummy, Wolfie and the boys never thought of: weaponizing American pop culture to win the war in Iraq. What beats do you think the troops used? 2Pac’s? Eminem’s? 50 Cent’s? Snoop Dogg’s? Jay-z’s? Notorious B.I.G.’s? Ludacris’s? Dr. Dre’s? Nelly’s? […]

“Whatever else there is to say, the guy is simply out of his league,” we said. Charles Pierce, sitting in for Eric Alterman thank you, said the else today in funny, exquisite remarks: Holy Mother Of God God knows we’ve all made happy sport of the Avignon Presidency, especially in this little corner of the […]

Tomorrow’s a big day for Harrison Ford. The theater where he made his West Coast stage debut, The Laguna Playhouse, is to honor him as its “most distinguished alumnus.” The playhouse — which was founded in Laguna Beach, Calif., in 1920, making it one the nation’s oldest continuing theater companies — doesn’t say who the […]

Marc Weisblott was one of blogland’s savviest culture commentators, but he quit blogging. So said I on Monday. He read the item and on Tuesday began posting again. This time he’s calling his posts radio weisblogg, “news and commentary about the evolution of AM/FM etc.” Have a look while it lasts. You’ll see what I meant. … The Burlington Free […]

Jazz drummer Max Roach’s remark on music education and rap — “People who voted for defunding of music education programs in public schools are getting what they paid for” — drew comments. One reader wrote that the poet John Ashbery said somewhere: “The only thing worse than rap is French rap.” Anybody know where? Another […]

A friend of mine just got back from Japan. He’s a record producer, Bill Reed by name, who has also published two books: “Hot From Harlem,” a history of black entertainment that profiles key figures, and “Early Plastic,” a memoir of growing up in West Virginia and coming to New York, where he landed in Greenwich Village and became a […]

Guess who the critic is talking about: 1) Frank Sinatra2) Bing Crosby3) Mel Tormé4) Tony Bennett The man practices artless art. He takes verbal liberties, even makes occasional mistakes. Since he doesn’t seem to notice or care, no one else can. He chats between songs. He invites the audience to ignore the command in the […]

Here we go again. Watch this morning’s hearings live on the Web as the 9/11 commission takes more sworn testimony in public.

There are only two weeks left to tell the world what you want to do before you die. So say a pair of editors preparing a book of last wishes to be published (they say) early next year by Little, Brown & Company. I haven’t checked with Little, Brown. The editors, Mike and Chris, have […]

They’ve even noticed the controversy in India. Until the other day if you typed the word “Jew” into Google, the first search result turned out to be a link to an anti-Semitic Web site. A group called removejewwatch wants the site removed from the Google search engine and is asking at least 50,000 people to […]

Tom Shales had the best commentary and roundup I’ve read of yesterday’s sad little press gathering in the East Room of the White House, where our Fearless Maximum Leader was seen on television doing his usual, stumbling tap dance. Shales began: “When I say something, I mean it,” George W. Bush said decisively near the end of last […]

Whatever else there is to say, the guy is simply out of his league. He wasn’t elected to the presidency in the first place. He didn’t deserve it in the second place. He’s proved himself incompetent in the third place. “I don’t plan on losing my job,” he said tonight, during his news conference (only […]

Here we go. Watch this morning’s hearings live on the Web as the 9/11 commission takes more sworn testimony in public.

Did anybody see Chalmers Johnson Sunday night on C-Span2 Book TV? It was a rerun of an interview done in March at the Los Angeles Public Library by Warren Olney (of L.A. radio station KCRW), and it was mesmerizing. All Olney had to do was listen. Johnson recently published “The Sorrows of Empire.”  His thesis in […]

Blogging as self-promotion: A book review of mine appeared Sunday in the Chicago Sun-Times: It’s hard to say which comes off worse in Herman Wouk’s latest novel, his first in a decade: the U.S. Congress or the American press. “A Hole in Texas” offers the choice between two emblematic stereotypes: a red-faced opportunist who heads […]

A friend asked (this is true): “How’s the blogging life?” My reply: “Underpaid and overrated.” The overraters tend to be johnnys-come-lately who believe they’ve had a revelation when, in fact, all they’ve done is plugged in. The underpayers are everyone else — in other words, the readers. The truth is that, like much else on […]