It was strange seeing my dissertation on the postwar social problem film being reenacted on the Oscar stage last night. Sure, the Academy has always had a soft spot for the message film. But last night it felt like the Hollywood Renaissance had never happened and that we’d returned to the heyday of Stanley Kramer. […]
Judging from the reactions posted over at Blue
Mass Group, the Deval Patrick revolutionaries came to yesterday’s
Democratic Party caucuses expecting to be shut out of the primary
process, like Reich had been in 2002, only to find the battiments
already crumbling down.
Meanwhile, over at Ward 10 in Mission Hill, I felt like a French
peasant in the provinces while […]
Well, not literally. But this Wednesday we’ll be reading Edward
Jay Epstein’s The Big Picture: Money and Power in Hollywood.
I’ve just finished reading it - I’ll have plenty more to say after
book club discussion, I’m sure, but I’ll say now, it’s a fascinating,
engaging read, a tapestry of the major changes involved with the “New
Hollywood” and the […]
Since I’ve complained about the demise of gay bars in the city
before, it’s worth pointing out that a couple of new spots are spring
up. Dorchester has a new gay spot called dbar, which I gather
opened just in the last couple of weeks. Housed in a wood-paneled
space formerly an Irish pub, it’s a cross between […]
John catches the Boston Foundation in one doozy of an instance of press-release policy writing.
The Greater Boston Housing Report Card… put out by The Boston Foundation, would have you believe that there are people spending 80% (or more) of their income on rent. The report’s authors misuse data to draw inaccurate conclusions.
He […]
William Donaldson is stepping down from his post as head of the SEC, to be replaced with pro-business shill Rep. Christopher Cox. The comments at the Carpetbagger Report had this gem of a press release:
WASHINGTON– In a statement delivered today from the White House Press Room, President Bush announced his choice to head the Department […]
Last night Greater Boston had a segment on the Supreme Judicial Court’s ruling that the Commonwealth’s funding scheme for school districts is meeting its constitutional duty to lower-income school districts. Regular readers of this blog will not be surprised to hear that I think the SJC got it right; it reserved the provision of adequate […]
If you haven’t been following the political developments behind the Federal Marriage Amendment (and I haven’t really), I’d recommend Kristen Lombardi’s analysis in this week’s Phoenix. Her conclusion? The GOP is forcing the issue despite its nonstarter prospects, in order to force Kerry’s hand. Only the downside for the Republicans is greater.
One dynamic I […]
I was pleasantly surprised by John Edwards’ campaigning snippet on the NewsHour last night. Except for an annoying tendency to congratulate the questioning audience members, he did a good job. Perhaps a number of the candidates are revealing that in fact they are good campaigners and professional speakers and that the problems of the Democratic […]
Today’s must read is a post on Gregg Easterbrook’s new TNR blog, attacking the avarice of pending 9/11 lawsuits.
Now some 9/11 families are saying $1.6 million isn’t enough. Set aside whether they should be receiving anything from taxpayers, given the myriad other circumstances in which Americans die in various horrible events every bit as traumatic […]
It’s nice to see the Economist call a spade a spade:
This chronic [homelessness] problem dates back to the 1970s, when libertarians persuaded states to stop locking up the mentally ill unless they had actually broken the law. This saved the states money, because the federal government took on the financial burden of their disturbed charges […]
The Globe’s priest abuse scandal coverage has not weighed in yet, but this weekend the Observer and the BBC report on a Vatican document urging church officials to shuffle accused priests around and keep the accusations secret. The Church has retorted that the document has long since been superceded by canon law providing for the […]
I actually usually like Maureen Dowd’s commentary pieces and tend to defend her against her critics…but do we really need a piece telling us that straight men don’t like to shop for clothes?
BBC website has a note about bugs discovered at EU headquarters. Seems someone has been tapping the French and German phones. Too early to tell who’s responsible, but why would I not be surprised if the US were behind this? Mind you, a number of parties would have a motive for eavesdropping on diplomat’s conversations.
OK, the news keeps getting weirder. Now Algerians are lining the streets to cheer for Jacques Chirac.