Global
Call it the year of the yellow notepad. Doris Kearns Goodwin,
ejected from Parnassus, from Pulitzer jury service and kindred honorable
obligations, sinks under charges of plagiarism consequent, she claims, upon
sloppy note-taking on her trusty yellow legal pads.
Michael Bellesiles, taking heavy artillery fire for knavish scholarship in his book "Arming America," says that his notations from probate records central to his assertions about gun ownership in eighteenth-century America were on legal yellow pads that were irreparably damaged when his office at Emory sustained an inundation in 2000, the year his book was published. Connoisseurs of such sports of nature or of plumbing may note that, unusually, this particular flood came in May rather than mid-April, when people have completed their tax returns and are trying to clean out the Augean stables of their accounting.
Michael Bellesiles, taking heavy artillery fire for knavish scholarship in his book "Arming America," says that his notations from probate records central to his assertions about gun ownership in eighteenth-century America were on legal yellow pads that were irreparably damaged when his office at Emory sustained an inundation in 2000, the year his book was published. Connoisseurs of such sports of nature or of plumbing may note that, unusually, this particular flood came in May rather than mid-April, when people have completed their tax returns and are trying to clean out the Augean stables of their accounting.
AUSTIN, Texas -- Have you noticed that the health-care system is
not working? In fact, it's falling apart. And the most curious thing about
that is how few of the people for whom the system still works -- and they're
the ones who make the decisions --- are aware of it.
It's like the old story about frogs and hot water. If you drop a frog into boiling water, it will leap to get out, but if you drop a frog in cool water and then gradually heat it up, the beast doesn't notice. Or so they say. Another factor is the now-constant cognitive dissonance we have in this country as a result of the ever-widening gap between most people and the people who run things. If you have health insurance, the system is a pain in the behind but it works. If you don't have health insurance, you are flat out of luck. And in case you hadn't noticed, more and more employers are deciding not to offer health insurance, or using "temporary" workers or out-sourcing various tasks so they won't have to cover the workers.
It's like the old story about frogs and hot water. If you drop a frog into boiling water, it will leap to get out, but if you drop a frog in cool water and then gradually heat it up, the beast doesn't notice. Or so they say. Another factor is the now-constant cognitive dissonance we have in this country as a result of the ever-widening gap between most people and the people who run things. If you have health insurance, the system is a pain in the behind but it works. If you don't have health insurance, you are flat out of luck. And in case you hadn't noticed, more and more employers are deciding not to offer health insurance, or using "temporary" workers or out-sourcing various tasks so they won't have to cover the workers.
You've probably heard a lot of spooky tales about "the liberal
media."
Ever since Vice President Spiro Agnew denounced news outlets that were offending the Nixon administration in the autumn of 1969, the specter has been much more often cited than sighted. "The liberal media" is largely an apparition -- but the epithet serves as an effective weapon, brandished against journalists who might confront social inequities and imbalances of power.
During the last few months, former CBS correspondent Bernard Goldberg's new book "Bias" has stoked the "liberal media" canard. His anecdote-filled book continues to benefit from enormous media exposure.
In interviews on major networks, Goldberg has emphasized his book's charge that American media outlets are typically in step with the biased practices he noticed at CBS News -- where "we pointedly identified conservatives as conservatives, for example, but for some crazy reason didn't bother to identify liberals as liberals."
Ever since Vice President Spiro Agnew denounced news outlets that were offending the Nixon administration in the autumn of 1969, the specter has been much more often cited than sighted. "The liberal media" is largely an apparition -- but the epithet serves as an effective weapon, brandished against journalists who might confront social inequities and imbalances of power.
During the last few months, former CBS correspondent Bernard Goldberg's new book "Bias" has stoked the "liberal media" canard. His anecdote-filled book continues to benefit from enormous media exposure.
In interviews on major networks, Goldberg has emphasized his book's charge that American media outlets are typically in step with the biased practices he noticed at CBS News -- where "we pointedly identified conservatives as conservatives, for example, but for some crazy reason didn't bother to identify liberals as liberals."
AUSTIN, Texas -- Boy, we are marching backwards on the
environment at a truly impressive pace. Between the Senate and the Bush
administration, we are advancing to the rear, double time. The Clean Air
Act, the Clean Water Act, fuel efficiency standards, toxic waste -- this is
literally sickening stuff.
Last week, the Senate voted 62 to 38 to postpone, yet again, increasing the fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks. According to he Sierra Club, the average fuel economy of cars sold last year was 20.4 miles per gallon, the lowest since 1980. The failed fuel efficiency proposal could have saved the country up to 1 million barrels of oil a day by 2016 -- as much as the United States currently imports from Iraq and Kuwait.
Last week, the Senate voted 62 to 38 to postpone, yet again, increasing the fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks. According to he Sierra Club, the average fuel economy of cars sold last year was 20.4 miles per gallon, the lowest since 1980. The failed fuel efficiency proposal could have saved the country up to 1 million barrels of oil a day by 2016 -- as much as the United States currently imports from Iraq and Kuwait.
Saddam Hussein's regime is ordering thousands of small
generators, which tells us that, for one, Saddam Hussein reckons that a U.S.
attack may indeed be in the offing. When the bombing starts and the central
generating stations get blown up all over again, there'll at least be some
micro-generating capacity to keep a few lights on.
But just what is the likelihood of Bush cashing out his bluster about the Axis of Evil with an effort to finish off Saddam?
But just what is the likelihood of Bush cashing out his bluster about the Axis of Evil with an effort to finish off Saddam?
, Texas -- Gee, what a shame about Arthur Andersen. And
it's going to make such a big mess, too. But wouldn't you like to hear the
arguments being made in defense of Andersen put forward in a Texas
courtroom, just to see what would happen?
"Your honor, members of the jury, it is true that my client Arthur Dwayne Andersen (it's practically mandatory to have the middle name Dwayne if you're going to prison in Texas) is guilty of theft by malpractice in this Enron deal. He cut a few corners and bent a few rules. And then he burned up all the office records to cover it up.
"Your honor, members of the jury, it is true that my client Arthur Dwayne Andersen (it's practically mandatory to have the middle name Dwayne if you're going to prison in Texas) is guilty of theft by malpractice in this Enron deal. He cut a few corners and bent a few rules. And then he burned up all the office records to cover it up.
Tip-skimming has surfaced in Boston, and there can't be a tipper
in America who, on hearing the news, doesn't exclaim, "The greedy bastards!"
In a lawsuit filed March 7 in Suffolk Superior Court, five former servers
from the venerable eatery Locke-Ober say the restaurant made them kick back
the bulk of their tips to management. Then, when they made a fuss, they were
fired. Suits are also being filed against three other restaurants by
employees. The waiters allege that the restaurants are breaking state labor
laws by grabbing their tips.
Skimming tips allows restaurant owners to pay managers less out of their own pockets because the tips make up the difference. And since waiters and kindred staff are paid subminimum wage, they thus get screwed twice. Greed isn't unique to Boston. This must be happening across the country. Soon we'll be asked to make it standard practice to tip a minimum of 30 percent: 15 percent for the workers, and 15 percent for the management.
Skimming tips allows restaurant owners to pay managers less out of their own pockets because the tips make up the difference. And since waiters and kindred staff are paid subminimum wage, they thus get screwed twice. Greed isn't unique to Boston. This must be happening across the country. Soon we'll be asked to make it standard practice to tip a minimum of 30 percent: 15 percent for the workers, and 15 percent for the management.
What a sad day. I just wanted everyone to know that we are all fine. Many things happened this week. Earlier in the week we helped a Palestinian farmer harvest olives. His land is close to a settlement. (Peni Haifer) When we got there, the IDF came and said we had to leave. We told them that the farmer had gotten permission to harvest his olives from the cilvil adm, so after a while they decided we could stay. As they were leaving, settlers shot 10 rounds of amunition at us (over our heads to scare us) so the IDF came back and said they would stay until we were done. That was a good thing. We worked like a pack of horses!! The farmer said that most of his trees had been cut down by the IDF (500-1000 fruit and olive trees) two years ago. It seems the public is tired of hearing about the Palestinian farmers getting shot at, so sometimes IDF helps to protect them, but had we not been there, he would not have been able to get in his field.
In the aftermath of their high-profile failure to lure David
Letterman, top executives at ABC are scrambling to repair the
public-relations damage from the network's proclaimed eagerness to throw
"Nightline" overboard. But the nation's TV viewers don't need to read
the current wave of commentaries about the debacle to know that feverish
pursuit of unlimited profits by media conglomerates is rapidly causing
"TV journalism" to become oxymoronic.
With its suffocating pretensions and frequent idiocies, television has always cried out for sardonic mockery. At times, beginning with Mad Magazine's razor-sharp parodies a half-century ago, "the vast wasteland" has been appropriately skewered. But the day is fast approaching when satire of American TV will be impossible.
With its suffocating pretensions and frequent idiocies, television has always cried out for sardonic mockery. At times, beginning with Mad Magazine's razor-sharp parodies a half-century ago, "the vast wasteland" has been appropriately skewered. But the day is fast approaching when satire of American TV will be impossible.
AUSTIN, Texas -- The Tonya Harding/Paula Jones match on
"Celebrity Boxing" ... I have no idea how to finish that sentence. OK, it's
a concept. Maybe it's camp. Or haute tacky. Sure, we could shoot whoever
thought of it, but don't you get the creepy feeling it says something awful
about the culture? I just can't figure out what. It's a "What is the world
coming to?" moment.
The New York Times critic says this "is not a postmodern joke about Warholian fame," she thinks it's a cruelty joke. I suppose people have always paid to see freak shows. But I suspect even P.T. Barnum would have been taken aback by this. Once you start thinking about it, though, it has a perverse fascination. How about "Fantasy Celebrity Boxing" with Medea versus Lizzie Borden?
The New York Times critic says this "is not a postmodern joke about Warholian fame," she thinks it's a cruelty joke. I suppose people have always paid to see freak shows. But I suspect even P.T. Barnum would have been taken aback by this. Once you start thinking about it, though, it has a perverse fascination. How about "Fantasy Celebrity Boxing" with Medea versus Lizzie Borden?