Greg Mitchell on media, politics, film, music, TV, comedy and more. "Not here, not here the darkness, in this twittering world." -- T.S. Eliot
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Sunday Morning in the Church of Beethoven
Friday, January 29, 2010
Obama's Education Chief Says Katrina Best Thing to Happen to New Orleans' Schools
In an interview to be broadcast this weekend on Washington Watch With Roland Martin, Arne Duncan says, "I think the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans was Hurricane Katrina. That education system was a disaster, and it took Hurricane Katrina to wake up the community to say that 'we have to do better.'"
Arne Duncan does speak frankly when it comes to the shortcomings of urban school districts, but this comment seems unusually callous, even though we know what the secretary is trying to say. The public schools were a wreck before the storm, no real debate there. And, yes, the schooling options for many students are better in the city now, and student achievement is slowly, but surely on the rise.
But to the thousands of teachers, students, and school employees who lost colleagues, jobs, classrooms, school records, and the like, a remark like that from the nation's top education official is beyond insensitive.
J.D. Salinger Liked His Privacy--But Oh Those Church Suppers

Until last year, Salinger was a regular at the Hartland Congregational Church's roast beef suppers, arriving more than two hours early for the first seating.
He would bring along back issues of the Times and sit with other, mostly older, early birds waiting for the doors to open so he could claim the same seat at the head of the table nearest the pie rack.
CNN vs. Twitter, Chris Matthew and Ron Burgundy
Speech Therapy - Post-Racial
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Thursday, January 28, 2010
Yours Truly on 'Countdown' Tonight
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Pimping the Busted Rightwing 'Journos'
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Exile on Main Street
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Dutch Treat
Attack, Man
Democrats Must Fight Back - Paul Begala
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A Paul Over Obama

There was a lot of delusion among progressives who convinced themselves, in the face of clear evidence to the contrary, that Obama was a strong champion of their values. He wasn’t and isn’t.That doesn’t mean that there’s no difference between the parties, that everything would have been the same if McCain had won. But progressives are in the process of losing a big chance to change the narrative, and that’s largely because they have a leader who never had any inclination to do so.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Colbert Disciplines "Alpha Dog"
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Monday, January 25, 2010
Hitler Squad Adopts a Highway
When the Nazi's first applied for the stretch of highway just south of Bromley lane in Brighton, the Colorado Department of Transportation called to say thanks, but no thanks.
But the law, it turns out, was on the Nazi's side.
"Courts around the country have allowed white supremacists to sponsor highway signs," says Anti-Defamation League Director Bruce DeBoskey. So although the Anti-Defamation League couldn't be more opposed to the Nazi movement, it advised the state to put the application through.
No Blues on Bourbon Street
PLUS: Go to Time-Pic main page for dozens of other features, including song tributes. (Photo by G.M.)
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Don't Miss: 3D Exploration of 'Guernica'
Sunday Morning in the Church of Beethoven
Serpico on 'Serpico'
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Best for Last
Friday, January 22, 2010
You, Sir!
Special Comment - Keith Olbermann's Name-Calling
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Is This the Greatest Wedding Trailer Ever?
'Exile' On Main Street
Velvet Underground Meets Gospel
Isle of Right
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Barenboim/Beethoven
Big Mac, Hold the Buns

That weekend in Philadelphia, a day before the “Godzilla” opening, Mark McGwire hit three home runs in one game against us, including a mammoth shot that landed in the unpopulated upper deck at Veterans Stadium. It was Godzilla in the flesh, instilling awe in other professionals who were themselves playing at the highest level of the same game. Too bad that McGwire’s achievement, as it turned out, wasn’t too far from the toy-cars-and-fake-explosions world of his on-screen equivalent. Entertaining, but contrived.
I'll Drink to That!
Welcome to the Club, Pal

Wednesday, January 20, 2010
New Senator Shoplifted, But Here's Embarrassing Part

He grew his hair long, listened to Aerosmith and Kiss and, at 12, was arrested for shoplifting a bunch of albums (Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Grand Funk Railroad) at a local mall.
He went before a judge, Samuel Zoll, who invited him into his chambers and asked him about his life. Mr. Brown responded by saying he loved basketball and had younger half siblings who looked up to him. “How do you think they would like to watch you play basketball in jail?” the judge asked, according to Mr. Brown’s telling. Judge Zoll demanded that Mr. Brown write a 1,500-word essay about the episode and eventually let him go.
Mr. Brown said that experience was a pivot point in his life, leading him to be more serious about school and sports. His long-range shooting skill at Wakefield High School and, eventually, Tufts University, earned him the nickname Downtown Scotty Brown.
He May Be Guv But He's No 'Boss'
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie sings "Born to Run" with Bruce Springsteen tribute band. |
Beck Hits "Creepy' Brown on Offering Up Daughters
'NYT' Goes Pay for Play

The New York Times announced Wednesday that it intended to charge frequent readers for access to its Web site, a step being debated across the industry that nearly every major newspaper has so far feared to take.
Starting in early 2011, visitors to NYTimes.com will get a certain number of articles free every month before being asked to pay a flat fee for unlimited access. Subscribers to the newspaper’s print edition will receive full access to the site.
But executives of The New York Times Company said they could not yet answer fundamental questions about the plan, like how much it would cost or what the limit would be on free reading. They stressed that the amount of free access could change with time, in response to economic conditions and reader demand.
“This announcement allows us to begin the thought process that’s going to answer so many of the questions that we all care about,” Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the company chairman and publisher of the newspaper, said in an interview. “We can’t get this halfway right or three-quarters of the way right. We have to get this really, really right.”
High School Quizzical
From 'Avatar' to Hiroshima to 'NYT'

Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Wacky Animated Jay vs. Conan
GOP Candidate in Mass 'Looks Like An American'
Exiting 'E&P'
Kate McGarrigle Dies at 63.
Mass Delusion
Mass Backwards
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'Post' Apocalypse?

Over the past year, the Post has folded its business section into the A-section, killed its book review, revamped its Sunday magazine, and redesigned the entire paper and website, while organizationally merging the print and online editions. Hundreds of staffers have left the Post since 2003, thanks to four rounds of buyouts. In 2008, the Post began losing money; in 2009, its advertising revenue dropped by $100 million. All of this while the paper was under siege from new competitors, national and local. “The common storyline is the Post is flailing,” a senior reporter says. “To me, it’s slightly different. It’s throwing everything up there to see what sticks.” “Everybody feels like we’re lurching,” says another reporter. “A company in chaos” is how a third Post staffer describes the state of the paper....
His [Editor Marcus Brauchli] appointment took many by surprise. He was the first outsider to run the paper, and he had virtually no experience in domestic politics or metro coverage, the Post’s core franchises. A few months after Brauchli arrived, some staffers took to calling him “Count Brauchula” and circulated an e-mail containing a photo of Brauchli with red eyes and fangs. In addition, a story spread among Post staff about how he had impressed Weymouth: After Brauchli interviewed with the publisher over breakfast near her home, she offered to give him a ride to the newsroom in her convertible BMW. On the drive downtown, Weymouth supposedly freaked out when a spider jumped into the car. Brauchli calmly removed the bug. As one former senior Post staffer says, “It was the you’re-my-hero moment.” Well, not exactly, Weymouth explains. “It was not relevant on my radar screen,” she told me. “But since you ask, it is true there was a spider.”
Monday, January 18, 2010
Curt Remarks
Fun Commercial on Print vs. Web
Best Hollywood Satire Ever
Right Out of 'The Hurt Locker'
New Apple Falling from Tree Finally?

Unless you’ve been living on another, Internet-deprived planet for the last year or so, you’ve probably got a pretty good idea what this is likely to be: the unveiling of Apple’s long-awaited, breathlessly hyped tablet computer. The device promises to hasten the extinction of paper, solidify Apple’s advantages in the mobile computing market, cure hunger and finally broker a peace between Jay and Conan.
Gitmo Bad News
It's 'Lonesome' at the Top
WSJ conservative James Taranto with long sympathetic interview with Glenn Beck today. Plenty of movie talk on Beck as Network's Howard Beale and A Face in the Crowd's "Lonesome Rhodes." Here's an excerpt on the latter:
Some of Mr. Beck's detractors on the left, including MSNBC ranter Keith Olbermann, draw a more sinister cinematic analogy. Mr. Olbermann calls Mr. Beck "Lonesome Rhodes," the cynical TV demagogue played by Andy Griffith in 1957's "A Face in the Crowd."
"I had never heard of Lonesome Rhodes," Mr. Beck says. "I had never seen the movie. . . . As soon as I heard that, I watched it. . . . Lonesome Rhodes and I, I guess, had a few things in common. He was a drunk. I'm in AA; he wasn't. He, at the very beginning, said things that he believed—I think. I'm not really even sure on that. I used to not say the things I believe. . . . Now I've made a vow to myself—it actually comes from Immanuel Kant, the philosopher: 'There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.' . . . The minute I violate that, I'm back to the old drunk Glenn."
Jets Tu, Brute?
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Exile on Main Street
Auletta Bleed: On Obama and Media

'NYT' Set to Go Pay for Play?

New York Times Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. appears close to announcing that the paper will begin charging for access to its website, according to people familiar with internal deliberations. After a year of sometimes fraught debate inside the paper, the choice for some time has been between a Wall Street Journal-type pay wall and the metered system adopted by the Financial Times, in which readers can sample a certain number of free articles before being asked to subscribe. The Times seems to have settled on the metered system.
One personal friend of Sulzberger said a final decision could come within days, and a senior newsroom source agreed, adding that the plan could be announced in a matter of weeks. (Apple's tablet computer is rumored to launch on January 27, and sources speculate that Sulzberger will strike a content partnership for the new device, which could dovetail with the paid strategy.) It will likely be months before the Times actually begins to charge for content, perhaps sometime this spring.
Sunday Morning in the Church of Beethoven
Most Disturbing Photo Yet?

From Haiti? TIME magazine has put up a new gallery with this one kicking it off: Dump truck picking up bodies for a hasty burial. And see post below for report on debate over photos as graphic as this. (TIMOTHY FADEK/Time)
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Photo Graphic Evidence

Good AP piece today on the range of photos this week and how some have broken "tradition." Interesting debate on how far is too far -- especially with so much available on the Web. Meanwhile, some terrific "graphic" editorial cartoons as well.
'Bin' There, Not Done That

See Ya Later, Bobby Charles
Friday, January 15, 2010
Bob Dylan Comments on My 'E&P' Exit!
'NYT' on 'E&P'

AP Bureau Wrecked in Haiti
Young Drops 'Pants'
Mark McGwire Confesses That He Bowed Down to Higher Power!

Haiti Entering Post-9/11 Phase?

Gates Cites Failures in Ft. Hood Case
UPDATED : 'E&P' Is Back -- But I Am Out
Much more later. My email remains: epic1934@aol.com. Twitter here. Contact Joe Strupp here. Thanks.
UPDATE: Thanks for more than a thousand messages of outrage and support via Twitter and emails so far. Huff Post covers here. Forbes covers here with fun "crew set adrift" by boating publisher hed. Much more to come, I hear. New owner tells Folio: "In terms of editorial direction, Duncan said E&P is and has been right on course." And oddly, after announcing it was back and going full speed ahead yesterday, E&P site has been updated today with....three short items. -- Greg Mitchell
Jon Stewart vs Robertson, Limbaugh and -- Maddow
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Media Struggle to Cover Haiti
From Haiti to Hiroshima

"Haiti" -- Arcade Fire
A Ford, Not A Lincoln
Obama in Mass Appeal
Conan the Contrarian
Response to Haiti's "Pact With the Devil"
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Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Roger Not Out
We were curious about the brouhaha and reached out to Ailes. He said Freud's remarks "didn't make sense to me," and added that stories that "I'm a dead man" are "being manufactured." Ailes said he's sure he has met Freud but, "I couldn't pick him out of a lineup ... most people who have a problem at least walk up to me and talk to me about it." (But Ailes has cameras around his office and a driver, so the casual approach might be difficult.)
Can You Stand Pat Robertson?
Biden: His Time as Booze Pusher Ends
Biden Criticized For Appearing In Hennessy Ads
Jon Stewart Apologizes for Not Nailing Yoo
Intro - John Yoo Interview Reflections
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My Rock and Roll Series Rolls On
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Heartbreaking Images from Haiti

One of many feeds here. Twitterers supplying most of accounts and images. Here is one from man known as "Morel."
Colbert Tackles 'Negro' Problem
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A Sleeve to Fashion
Conan Goes NBA on NBC
Monday, January 11, 2010
A Cooke's Tour
Big Mac Was Whopper of Steroids User
Sunday, January 10, 2010
From "Avatar" to the A-Bomb

Brit Journo Killed in Afghan
What Ailes Us

Sunday Morning in the Church of Beethoven
Abuse: In Yemen and in Lawsuits?
Friday, January 8, 2010
Colbert Schools Obama on Connecting Dots
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After 'Avatar': The A-Bomb?

Not exactly a commercial, Hollywood subject but one I have covered for, oh, nearly 30 years, including going to Japan to interview dozens of survivors -- and write book with Robert Jay Lifton, Hiroshima in America (see left rail on this blog). Amazing if this goes forward.
Mr. 9/11 Forgets....9/11
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Amazing Grace, Indeed
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Tough Work But Someone's Gotta Do It

Weatherproofing Obama

Doubly Unlucky--Or Lucky?

On the left rail of this blog you will the book I wrote with Robert Jay Lifton, Hiroshima in America, which covers all of this and much more.