Courtesy of my man in Havana, the latest issue of CubaNow (a digital magazine of Cuban arts and culture) just eluded U.S. customs and made it into my emailbox. It features stacks of current and archived articles like these, picked at random: Gabriel Garcia Marquez on “bad literature teachers”; Cuba’s most eminent musicologist, Maria Teresa Linares, on “the close […]

Early in “Hannah and Martin,” a new play about the 20th-century political theorist Hannah Arendt and the philosopher Martin Heidegger, the audience at the Manhattan Ensemble Theatre learns it’s just a few handshakes away from Hitler. “Hitler has blood on his hands, yes?” says Hannah in a flashback to a Nuremberg hotel room in 1946. […]

Hats off to the five-member jury that awarded the Pulitzer Prize in drama to Doug Wright’s “I Am My Own Wife.” Smart choice. It doesn’t always happen. But easy choice, too. When “Wife” opened last December on Broadway, it bowled me over: “Once in a blue moon a play comes along that restores my belief […]

Emmanuel Dongala, a novelist and chemist who used to live in Brazzaville, in the Congo Republic, writes today in “The Genocide Next Door” on the Op-Ed Page of The New York Times: “It wasn’t surprising that the 20th century ended with Africa having a genocide of its own“ She recalls seeing it on TV with […]

Hate to say it, but what a bore. If you listened to Air America Radio over the weekend, did you come to the conclusion — as I did — that high-decibel liberal talk radio is as monotonous as conservative talk radio, and nearly as off-putting? What a shame. The sole redeeming factor working against the rant […]

Maybe it’s just a coincidence. But after reading Norman Lebrecht’s recent column, A critical gap, I can’t help thinking that he must have read William Osborne’s “Marketplace of Ideas” on ArtsJournal. The focus of each article is different. Lebrecht zeroes in on arts criticism, Osborne on arts funding. Nevertheless, Lebrecht cites American corporatization of the […]

We all know the Maximum Leader and his Crony in Chief will sing a private duet for the 9/11 commission. But in case we forgot, Hendrik Hertzberg reminds us in today’s New Yorker of two unpublicized conditions set by the White House: “There will be no official electronic recording” of their testimony “and there will […]

“For all you liberals out there,” as my cousin Joan says, “if you can’t get Air America Radio on the radio, you can get it on the computer. (Just click the link to stream the broadcast.) Makes sense, especially for all those liberals and conservatives who don’t live in the six major metropolitan areas that […]

Slate’s rave notice for “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” makes me cringe with disbelief. “This is the best movie I’ve seen in a decade,” David Edelstein wrote, and he had lots of company from critics across the spectrum. There’s no accounting for taste and all that. But it reminds me of a recent conversation […]

It was so funny it seemed too good to believe. I’m talking about a new routine called “George W. Bush Invigorates America’s Youth,” which made its debut with an hilarious video clip Monday night on “The Late Show With David Letterman.” I laughed so hard it broke me up. I wish I could find the […]

Three news stories this morning lend more ammunition to the powder keg we hope will explode what’s left of W Ltd.’s credibility. One is the top front-page story in The New York Times, headlined in the print edition: “BUSH AIDES KEPT CLINTON’S PAPERS FROM 9/11 PANEL.” The subheads summarize the rest of the story: “AN […]

Viewers of tonight’s “Frontline” documentary about the 1994 Rwanda genocide will be reminded of “the world’s failure to halt the slaughter.” That’s what I wrote earlier today. How stupid for being so vague. I owe readers an apology. I should have said viewers will be reminded of “the failure of the United Nations.” I should […]

by Jan Herman Tonight’s “Frontline” PBS documentary about the 1994 Rwandan genocide, “Ghosts of Rwanda,” will remind viewers of the world’s failure to halt the slaughter of a civilian population which “occurred at a rate of three to four times that of the Holocaust.” It put to flight “two million internally displaced persons and two […]

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 […]

By Jan Herman 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 […]

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 […]