After all the tears shed over the death of neocon ideologue Robert L. Bartley, because he was kind and gentle in his private life, at least < B>Dan Kennedy hasn’t forgotten exactly what we’d noted, too, that Bartley in his public role as the chief editorialist for the Wall Street Journal had been, in Kennedy’s fair […]

Reuters continued its winning ways this morning with a fine news lede that speaks volumes about the mood of the nation, maybe even the decline of the West: “President Bush may have defeated Saddam Hussein, but he lost to the socialite Paris Hilton in the television ratings on Tuesday night.” That was the night the 22-year-old […]

Nothing draws mail like a dismissal of pro wrestling as a form of artistic expression or a criticism of Wal-Mart. A reader writes: Jan, Jan, Jan — How can someone as bright as you fail to appreciate the cultural significance of professional wrestling? This head-in-the-sand attitude is what allowed Bush to be elected president. People […]

The Golden Globules are with us again, ushering in the new awards season this morning with nominations for movies and television. Here are the < FONT color=#003399>Globule nominees. Is there’s anything more to say except “so what?”

In his blog riley entry last Sunday on this site, “WHAT WOULD RANDY SHILTS HAVE SAID?,” esteemed author and critic Tim Riley nearly gagged on the hype for “Angels in America.” (So had I.) The reason for the hype, he maintained, is that Tony Kushner’s play “is simply too ‘politically correct’ to criticize,” which made it “much easier for […]

Is professional wrestling a legitimate vehicle for artistic expression? I don’t think so. Is it the future of sports entertainment in this country? I hope not. Nonetheless, I pass along a friend’s recommendation of Barry Blaustein’s documentary, “Beyond the Mat,” for what he calls “its excellent, objective view of the world of pro wrestling.” Why, […]

Purple prose is not the only way to sterilize the language. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, demonstrated a colorless, odorless, antiseptic method earlier this week when asked if Saddam Hussein was cooperating with interrogaters. “In my interfaces with him he has been talkative,” Sanchez said. Since the general is […]

From a member of the staff: “Most of us try to have a few bucks in walking-around money. Saddam had $750,000 in crawling-around money.” From Ryan McGee’s Wading in the Velvet Sea: “I flipped on the TV, and the first thing I see are images of the cubby hole. … I thought, Wow, all this […]

My staff of thousands finally came up with a bright idea: Issue a daily or, to make the job less demanding, sort of daily Purple Prose Alert. So here’s today’s, from the swiftly rising purplemeister David Brooks. He writes this morning that “Bush believes the U.S. has a unique role to play in [the] struggle […]

Last Saturday Straight Up had an item, THE FUNNY PAGES, noting that an obit correction in The New York Times “read like a satire from The Onion,” as did a David Brooks column. We also pointed out that “a tidbit from Reuters” about Italy’s multibillionaire prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, was “too funny for The Onion.” Two days […]

With her new English version of “Don Quixote,” Edith Grossman “might be called the Glenn Gould of translators, because she, too, articulates every note,” Harold Bloom writes in London’s Guardian. “Reading her amazing mode of finding equivalents in English for Cervantes’s darkening vision is an entrance into a further understanding of why this great book […]

Boy, was I wrong. The second half of “Angels in America” wriggled out of the straightjacket Mike Nichols had made for it in the first half. Last night, miracle of miracles, even the literalism of a TV movie couldn’t fuck it up. Tony Kushner’s play finally came through the tube with a power that took off. Part […]

Is this Reuters report true, or an urban legend in the making? “I’m Saddam Hussein,” the man with the scruffy beard said in English when U.S. troops found him in a dirt hole. “I’m the president of Iraq and I’m willing to negotiate.” In English, no less. When it comes to negotiations, how about finding […]

Finally someone who doesn’t believe the HBO hype. Here’s big bad Dale Peck on why “Angels in America” doesn’t work on TV. His analysis, posted Friday on Slate, makes an excellent point about why the rabbi’s speech to a congregation of mourners in last week’s opening scene failed to strike the right chord (particularly a […]

Who said The New York Times has no sense of humor? Its obituary page became a scandal earlier this month, prompting an in-house warning to the staff, but an obit correction this morning (sixth paragraph down) still read like a satire from The Onion: An obituary on Wednesday about Lewis M. Allen, a theater and […]

With impeccable timing last night, a friend wrote: “This season ChevronTexaco will end its 63-year sponsorship of the Metropolitan Opera Saturday afternoon live radio broadcasts. It’s appalling that this immensely popular and significant cultural activity will be terminated, even though it costs only $7 million, a mere bagatelle for this humongous petrochemical empire. That’s about […]

A regular reader from Texas writes: “My Dad retired from Chevron in 1990. At the time of his retirement, he was quite high on the Chevron management food chain. I asked him about your article regarding Chevron-Texaco’s failure to fund the Met broadcasts next year. Dad observes as follows: “1. Chevron-Texaco is not the same […]