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Book Review: 30 June 2009
Hiding in Plain Sight:
The Secret World of Raymond Burr
That the film and television
actor was in a long-term, same-sex relationship is scarcely enough to
sustain the salaciously titled new biography by Michael Seth Starr.
News Editorial: 23 Juin
2009
Paris
Les 101
Gestes du Président Américain: No. 21: La Reconnaissance Officielle des
Gays par la Maison-Blanche.
"Je suis sûr qu’il [cet homme
gay] apprécierait un homme ouvert comme moi." George W. Bush
News Editorial: 5 June 2009
Paris
Tiananmen, Twenty
Years Hence: What France has Forgotten
For a brief moment in
history, it seemed that Paris might emerge as the capital of a Free China.
How did France’s courageous initial reactions to the Tiananmen massacre
wither and fade into amnesia and apathy?
Comment: 25 May 2009
Kuala Lampur,
Malaysia
Missing Link:
(Too) Much Ado About Ida
Despite all the media hyperbole about
"missing links," it may turn out that all the scientific claims and
ejaculations are a bit, in a word, premature. Dr. Anton Espira offers his
perspective.
Comment: 24 April 2009
San Francisco
Tortures Taint:
Waterboarding Sean Hannity for Charity
Yes, imagining that this
scenario could take place is a guilty pleasure. But only with emphasis on
the word "guilty.
Comment: 22 April 2009
Paris
Nicolas Sarkozy’s Big
Mouth: neither asset nor liability, it is a way of life
While
Nicolas Sarkozy’s lack of propriety and diplomatic nuance will likely cast
him in the role of the "European Bush" - despised by his international
counterparts and ridiculed by media – he will undoubtedly win re-election.
The French are funny that way.
Seen: 16 April 2009
Zermatt, Switzerland
Out of the Frying Pan and Into
the Hotel: A Design Fiasco’s Lasting Legacy
Form may follow
Function, but if they both are being led by Folly, the result is usually
disaster. Unable to live with his Swiss hotel’s failure, Heinz Julen sees
to it that its controversy lives on.
Seen: 12 April 2009
Washington,
DC
LGBT
Families to Participate in White House Egg Roll
Unlike his
predecessors, whose campaign rhetoric was often peppered with rose-hued
calls for inclusivity, President Obama makes good on the promise.
Film Festival: 6 April 2009
New York
Status, Stasis and
Stereotypes: The New York African FIlm Festival brings Story to the
Fore
The filmmakers represented in the 16th Annual New York African
Film Festival (NYAFF) stand ready to shatter your expectations, presenting
stories that embrace and explore the human, not the African, condition -
making this year's festival not so much international as
supranational.
Book Review: 23 March 2009
New
York
Barney
Kilgore: The Man Who Made The Wall Street Journal
At America's
economic nadir, a cub reporter joined a foundering business publication
and – over the course of a remarkable career – molded The Wall Street
Journal into the model of modern journalism. A new biography
chronicles his remarkable legacy.
Film Review: 16 March 2009
New York
Auf der Strecke (On
the Line)
Alan Behr on the short film from Germany and
Switzerland, nominated for Best Short Film at The Academy Awards 2009.
Comment: 9 March 2009
New York
Taking Government Out
of the "Marriage" Business: (Another) Reconciliation on Gay
Marriage
Wherein Sam Singer offers a response to the recent,
middle-ground-seeking New York Times editorial co-authored by
Jonathan Rausch and David Blankenhorn.
Film Review: 2 March 2009
Paris
To Sir: But Without
the Love
Laurent Cantet’s "Entre les Murs" may have garnered the
2008 Palme d’Or, but it owes a debt of gratitude (and perhaps an apology)
to its predecessor films in the "troubled school kids" oeuvre.
News: 2 March 2009
San Francisco
Endangered Species: The Plight of the
Cheetah
The cheetah, which can reach speeds of 70 miles per hour,
is considered one of the world’s most endangered species.
Style: 23 February 2009
New York
Dress Up: Choosing the Perfectly
Appropriate Party Dress
The Party Dress, Alexandra Black's
voluminous and jumbled retrospective of fine fashion, illustrates the
pitfalls of dressing of an age vs. dressing for the ages. Commentary by
Alan and Julie Behr.
Tips for Evening
Dress
"Many American women have one idea what evening clothes are:
it’s based loosely on what they wore to the prom," writes New York style
consultant Julie Hackett Behr.
Film Review: 20 February 2009
New York
Vicky
Cristina Barcelona
"Taken out of his native Manhattan, Woody Allen
seems incapable of finding an alternative voice," writes Andrew Jack on a
trans-atlantic flight from London to Washington, DC.
Comment: 13 February 2009
Kuala
Lampur,
Malaysia
The Evolution
of Charles Darwin's Reputation
Not since Copernicus were
such fiery passions stirred by scientific theory as by those of Charles
Darwin. On the 200th anniversary of his birth, world wide commemorations
of the man and his works reveal the intelligent design behind his efforts
to shape his own legacy.
Tech: 12 February 2009
New York
ROFLcon: The Love Song of Amber Lee
Ettinger
It's only at a confab of geekdom that Sockington the Cat,
Chuck Norris and the lovely Obama girl could synthesize so effortlessly.
(It's a nerd thing – you wouldn't understand.)
Calendar: 7 February
2009
San Francissco
Barack Obama: Year of the
Ox
Yoked with a burden not of his making, President Obama will need
an Ox's methodical, steadfast and imperturbable strength to acheive the
great goals he has set out for his administration and his country.
Books: 28 January 2009
New York
John Updike 1932 -
2009
The multi-award-winning novelist John Updike died Tuesday
morning at the age of 76, after a battle with lung cancer.
Books: 19 January 2009
New York
From King to
President in Just a Few Decades
Editors pick best books about the
civil rights movement in the United States.
Books: 16 January 2009
San Francisco
Methods and Motives of a
Muckraker: A Biography of Jacob Riis
With a first-generation
American ascending to the Presidency of a nation of immigrants, Tom
Buk-Swienty’s new biography shines a fresh light on an unsavory aspect of
"the American Dream."
News: 7 January 2009
San Francisco
Undoing George W.
Bush's Environmental Legacy
Before he left office, President
Clinton issued the "roadless rule" executive order in an attempt to
protect 58.5 million acres of national forest land from commercial
logging. George Bush spent much of his eight years tying it up in the
courts (while also opening up millions of acres of public land to other
forms of commercial exploitation like oil and gas exploration).
Seen: 30 December 2008
San Francisco
Brzezinski
Spells it Out to Joe Scarborough
MSNBC's right-wing talking head
Scarborough is paraded on the tip of Chief Zbigniew's spear.
Seen: 29 November 2008
Cape Town, South
Africa
SOS:
Save Our Sharks
Sharks are being killed at the rate of 100 million
a year. South African surfers have teamed up with marine scientists to
launch a campaign for the conservation of sharks.
Style: 21 November 2008
New York
Navigating Savile Row: How
to Order a Custom Tailored Suit
Noblesse, success or
wretched excess? Once the rarified domain of Kings, Kaisers and crooners,
the tailor shops of Savile Row have lately relied on the patronage of
bankers and hedge fund managers who have brought the world's economy to
the brink. Until a recovery, James Sherwood's new book may prove to be a
quaint souvenir of a time gone by.
Comment: 4 November 2008
San Francisco
Palin's Prank,
Darwin's Litmus Test, and America's Last Chance
Sarah Palin falls
prey to Canadian media jammers. Has the Republican Party proven it's unfit
to continue? And will Americans awaken to the future in front of them and
find their inner Obamas?
Book Review: 15 October 2008
New York
Paris 1962:
Yves Saint Laurent and Christian Dior, The Early
Collections
Once again at the vanguard of
change, the world is revisiting the 60s - its most Daedalian decade - with
renewed appreciation. Fashion photography, indeed photography in
toto, owes much to the seminal and groundbreaking work of Jerry
Schatzberg who was there, camera in hand, as a fashion star was born.
Book Review
New York
Water in the
Wine: Jews, God and a Modern Crisis of Identity
Alan Behr comments
on Edgar M. Bronfman's new book Hope, Not Fear: A Path to
Jewish Renaissance, wherein the author asks whether a self-imposed,
modern day diaspora threatens to answer a revised "Jewish question."
Sports
New York
Designer Steroids: Speeding
Evolution
(And Filling Stadium Seats)
American research chemist
Jason S. Thomas explains cutting edge steroids and why the Olympic
Committee hasn't got a chance in its ongoing battle against
performance-enhancing drugs
Seen
Palo Alto, California
Hyperion Nuclear
Batteries: Clean Power from Underground
Otis Peterson is no Tony Stark, but his innovative,
idiot-proof nuclear battery will surely beat Iron Man's arc reactor to
market and bring (relatively) green power to remote locations.
News
Paris
Obituary: Yves
Saint Laurent
The undisputed king of fashion during the
1960s and 70s, Saint Laurent introduced le smoking, bare breasts and
masculine glamour to the storied world of haute couture.
Style :
London
Karl Lagerfeld:
"Confidential" or Just Plain Confusing?
Shine Anthony-Dharan weighs
in on the up-close documentary and haute gossip about the life and times
of fashion designer, Karl Lagerfeld.
Style
Paris
Fashion
Collections: Fall 2008
"As talk of recession, global warming and
terrorism buzzed around the front rows, the fashion pack were expecting
more than usual from the designers this season", writes Shine
Anthony-Dharan from Paris and London. |
Oscar de la Renta worn by Ubah
Hassan
Photo courtesy of Oscar de la Renta
Tips for Evening
Dress
From King to
President in Just a Few Decades
Books, DVD
New York
Dying Darfur: Sudan Genocide
Subject of New DVD, Book
Sudan
coverage may be missing from American news these days, but Janjaweed
ethnic cleansing, financed by Chinese oil money, goes on every day. A new
film on DVD and a book of photographs call us to remember those dying in
Darfur.
Comment
San Francisco
Barack
Obama: The New Caesar Africanus? Or, What the hell is Chris Matthews
Talking About?
Barack Obama blows away his audience at the
Democratic National Convention. But Chris Matthews is a little too carried
away by his enthusiasm. Also, Keith Olbermann takes on the AP's Charles
Babington.
Comment
San
Francisco
Sarah Palin: A
Six-Point Plan for Her Debate with Joseph Biden
Build your own igloo! That's Sarah Palin's modest proposal to
clean up the mess the Democrat congress created over the last eight
years! The plan will help ordinary Americans, veterans, gun lovers, the obese
and foreclosure victims! And it will even
stop the Russians!
Comment
Cambridge,
Massachusetts
The
Commercialization of Race: Science, Technology and Medicine
Do
medical and commercial products targeted by race re-energize the idea of
race as a biological category just when scientists thought they had laid
it to rest? MIT research scientist and physician Dr. David S. Jones weighs
in on the controversy before an upcoming conference on race, medicine and
the social sciences.
Comment
San Francisco
Obama Super Bowl Ad and "Yes We Can Song" Show Campaign's
Media 2.0 Savvy
C. Antonio Romero on the
political implications of the viral Internet & YouTube phenomenon with
over 12 million views in 72 hours.
Comment
San Francisco
Mitt Romney: Faith,
Freedom, and Mormonism Unseen
Willard M. Romney pulls the Constitution,
religious freedom, and tolerance (rather than the Book of Mormon) out of
his hat, and may have distracted his audience long enough to "disappear"
the more bizarre and controversial doctrines of his religion.
Sports
Tokyo
Soccer: High
Price of Being a Fan
Pricey new book
weighs in on history of England’s most storied football club.
Commen t
La Paz, Bolivia
Race and Images
in Bolivia
"If popular media offer ideal social images, the
Bolivian model is assimilation (and exclusion for those who refuse
it)," writes Alexander Provan from La Paz.
News
London
The Perfect
Storm: Iran Sits in Eye of Political Hurricane
Swirling in wake of hostage crises, White
House pressure and Russian influence, Iran sits in eye of political
hurricane. An editorial by Andrew Jack.
Commen t:
San Francisco
Iraq: Would It Be So Wrong to Get
Out?
Adolescent right-wing ideology,
miscalculations, incompetence and pathological lying from the Bush
administration have left America pursuing unachievable goals and Iraq
drifting toward civil war. Is there still time to get it right in Iraq?
And if not, would it be so wrong to get out?
News Feature
Paris
Days of Glory: Valor,
Racism and the Ingratitude of the French Republic
Cannes Film Festival sensation
Days of Glory is set during World War II, and is the compelling
tale of four brave North African soldiers and forgotten heroes who assist
in liberating France from Hitler’s Nazi oppression.
Comment: 19 Mai 2008
Paris
Nicolas Sarkozy
est-il le John McCain francais?
John McCain et Nicolas Sarkozy se
ressemblent étrangement : ils s’en prennent à l’immigration, ils ont un
parti démoralisé et intellectuellement exsangue, et ils sont esclaves des
sondages. En cette fin de première année de pouvoir, Sarkozy peut
constater que les stratégies électorales ne servent pas à gouverner.
Néanmoins, ce président pseudo-gaulliste et ce candidat républicain se
livrent à une certaine émulation stratégique réciproque. Harold Hyman, à
Paris, nous livre ce commentaire.
News Archives
Paris
Pardon My French
Bloggers Debate France's
Presidential Candidates
"Political videos are much in demand, a
phenomenon that is indicative of what is happening on French blogs," says
Marion Lagardère. 
Comment
New York
The Plague: Racism
and the Swiss Elections
Point de vue
New-York
La Peste : Le
Racisme et Les Elections Suisses
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