Straight Up | Jan Herman

Two fine little comedies by Matt Haber put me in the mood to pass them on: One, “Be Excellent to Each Other,” features the invaginated Alex Winter on the phone with the invincible Keanu Reeves. The other, “Two Friends Talking,” features Tony Blair on the phone with Dear Leader, also mutually invaginated and invincible.

When I first read CIA director Porter Goss’s recent Congressional testimony that “Islamic extremists are exploiting the Iraqi conflict to recruit new anti-U.S. jihadists” and “these jihadists who survive will leave Iraq experienced and focus on acts of urban terrorism,” I intended to post an item about Dear Leader’s Big Lie that the invasion of […]

The suicide of Hunter S. Thompson is a huge, irreplaceable loss. A lot of people didn’t know of the Page 2 column he wrote on the Web for ESPN.com. But Hey, Rube was treasured by many of us who were not necessarily sports fans. His column, “Death in the afternoon,” which was about the meaning […]

And the Lord said, “Let there be escorts!”— David Ehrenstein.Illustration from Billmon’s Whiskey Bar.

Some cool postings by Bill Reed: Bird ‘n’ Sassy, a candid photo of Charlie Parker and Sarah Vaughan, which Reed explains in “For the Latest in Be-Bop.” And check out “Next Stop Altoona,” his memories of the 1938 Art Deco Municipal Auditorium still preserved, to his surprise, in his hometown of Charleston, W. Va. Jazz […]

By Jan Herman Apropos of yesterday’s item about googling “Negroponte, mass murder“: Democracy Now! has a top-notch segment this morning, headlined “Promoting the ‘Ambassador of Torture’,” which offers details on how our Dear Leader’s nominee for national intelligence director “played a key role in coordinating U.S. covert aid to the Contras who targeted civilians in […]

We’re all familiar with Dear Leader’s bogus claims, and those of his cronies, that torture of prisoners (or if you prefer the euphemism, abuse) was limited to a few “bad apples” and that systemic torture was never, never the case. Now comes major evidence in a new report in this morning’s London Guardian that “US […]

News bulletin: Dear Leader has nominated the American proconsul in Iraq, John Negroponte, as first U.S. national intelligence director, who will have authority over the budgets of the 15 U.S. intelligence agencies. So what happens when you google “Negroponte, mass murder“? Bill Osborne tried it and got 13,600 entries. Most important: He checked the first […]

Now that the Jeff Gannon/James Guckert story has made Keith Olbermann’s “Countdown” newsquiz, it’s safe to say the mainstream media have taken notice of the latest White House farce. True, it was the last question in the quiz, No. 14: Name one of the other websites registered to Jeff Gannon/James Guckert besides “jeffgannon.com”.+ zombo.com+ hotmilitarystuds.com+ […]

Not too long ago, writing about the death of Nelson Algren, I recalled a scene in Sag Harbor with Roy “Big Blue” Finer, the 6-foot-6 NYC homicide detective, who was Algren’s friend. Another friend of Algren’s, Roger Groening, sent the following message, which — given the stupid controversy surrounding best-picture Oscar contender “Million Dollar Baby” […]

Although many more neo-Nazis marched through Dresden than originally estimated — Reuters now says there were 5,000 marchers, not the initially reported 2,000 — it turns out that 10 times their number of ordinary Germans, “up to 50,000 residents, wearing white roses in a symbol of reconciliation, gathered in the city’s historic heart to light […]

As thousands of neo-Nazis marched in Dresden, Germany, on the 60th anniversary of the allied bombing raids that destroyed the city during World War II, I was reminded of the honkey myopia that Bill Osborne warned about earlier this month. The marchers, “waving black flags and carrying banners,” were using today’s anniversary to claim that […]

For an opening-day news story about the “The Gates” in New York’s Central Park, you might as well read the London Guardian’s report, which offers a more than adequate overview. For an opening-day appraisal, you might as well read the front-page appraisal in The New York Times by art critic Michael Kimmelman, who spares no […]

Rigorous Intuition’s Jeff Gannon exposé is not to be missed. Thanks to James Wolcott’s Mystery Beefcake, I just read RI’s “Stirring the White House honey pot,” about Jim Guckert, a k a Jeff Gannon of suddenly defunct Talon-News.com, “a conservative ringer” who received White House press credentials and “lobbed softball questions” at Dear Leader in press briefings. […]

“I don’t know a critic who penetrates to the center of anything,” the late, great playwright Arthur Miller once said, according to his front-page obituary in The New York Times. But it would be hard to find a better understanding of what was central in Miller’s work than this morning’s appreciation, “A Morality That Stared […]

PEN American Center President Salman Rushdie released the following statement this afternoon about Arthur Miller, who died Thursday at the age of 89: Arthur Miller was a writer of genius. He made plays with the grandeur and power of high tragedy, revealing what he called, in the opening stage directions of “Death of a Salesman,” […]