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Cinema: 23 July 2010
New York
You Can't Spell
"Inception" Without "I-N-E-P-T"
Banal, formulaic (in the
worst possible sense), ear splitting and over-wrought, 2010's much-hyped
summer blockbuster succeeds on only one front - providing movie-goers with
two and a half hours of air conditioned relief from the sizzling heat.
Book Review: 12 July 2010
New York
Thank Heaven for
Not-so-Little Girls
Alan Behr in New York on
the new Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Book, Heaven.
Comment: 9 July 2010
Montreal
The Frye-ku
Folio: 28, 29, 30
Humorist and illustrator Arcangelo
Frye offers up pages from his folio of Haiku for the age of Flickr,
YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.
DVD Review: 7 June 2010
New York
Henri
Cartier-Bresson Collector's Edition
Henri Cartier-Bresson
may be considered the father of modern photojournalism, but he was not
solely a photographer. A new 2-disc DVD of several documentaries he shot
between the 1930s and the 1970s bear witness to his affection for the
cinema. Read the review.
Comment: 4 June 2010
Montreal
The Frye-ku
Folio: 27
Humorist and illustrator Arcangelo Frye offers
up pages from his folio of Haiku for the age of Flickr, YouTube, Twitter
and Facebook. Number 27 in the series of modern-day Haiku is his love
letter to British Petroleum
News: 22 May 2010
Johannesburg
World Cup South Africa To
Kick Off With Superstar Concert Lineup
Billed as the greatest
entertainment event to date in Africa, the mega concert features musical
performances by an all-star line up as well as the presence of football
legends and other celebrities.
Comment: 17 May 2010
Montreal
The
Frye-ku Folio: 24, 25, 26
Humorist and illustrator
Arcangelo Frye offers up pages from his folio of Haiku for the age of
Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.Included in this selection is his
commentary on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Comment:10 May 2010
London
The UK Election
Results
Andrew Jack offers some observations on the
recent elections and their muddled outcome.
News: 10 May 2010
New York
Offshore Oil
Drilling and the BP Disaster
The BP oil disaster is
casting a long shadow over the public comment process now going on in
Virginia and other coastal U.S. states that are considering putting
exploratory oil wells in their offshore waters.
News: 17 April 2010
Geneva, Switzerland
WHO Warns Against
Breathing Volcanic Ash
The wind direction and other
meteorological conditions have an impact on where the ash falls to earth.
Photos and health guidelines.
Comment: 12 April 2010
Montreal
The Frye-ku
Folio: 21, 22, 23
Humorist and illustrator Arcangelo Frye
offers up pages from his folio of Haiku for the age of Flickr, YouTube,
Twitter and Facebook. Included in this selection is his commentary on
European Anti-Semitism.
Theatre Review: 2 April 2010
London
The Power of Yes
at the Lyttelton, National Theatre, London
David Hare’s latest play
attempts — and fails — to compellingly dramatize the events leading to the
near collapse of the global financial system.
News: 30 March 2010
Geneva, Switzerland
CERN Collider
Research Programme Reboots
"With these record-shattering
collision energies, the LHC experiments are propelled into a vast region
to explore, and the hunt begins for dark matter, new forces, new
dimensions and the Higgs boson," said spokesperson, Fabiola Gianotti.
Comment: 22 March 2010
Montreal
The Frye-Ku
Folio: 18, 19, 20
Humorist and illustrator Arcangelo Frye
offers up pages from his folio of Haiku for the age of Flickr, YouTube,
Twitter and Facebook.
News: 17 March 2010
Washington, D.C.
Congressman
Dennis Kucinich on U.S. Health Care Reform
The U.S.
Congressman from Ohio believes health care is a basic civil
right.
Tech: 14 March 2010
Los Angeles
Electric
cars, hybrids and...coal power?
Coal-fired power will be
the predominant source of electricity used by electric and plug-in hybrid
cars unless we begin to source significant amounts of electricity from
renewables like solar and wind.
News: 2 March 2010
New York
The Suicide Tourist:
Frontline Investigates Assisted Suicide in Switzerland
Do
we have the right to end our lives if life itself becomes unbearable, or
when we enter the late-stages of painful, terminal illness? PBS news
series Frontline offers a revealing look at people facing the
most difficult decision of their lives.
News: 22 February 2010
Los Angeles
Why is
Nuclear Waste Stored on Native American Reservations?
The
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation says that the U.S. government and private
companies have been offering Native American tribes millions of dollars to
host nuclear waste storage sites.
Comment: 20 February 2010
Montreal
The
Frye-ku Folio: 12, 13, 14
Humorist and illustrator Arcangelo Frye
offers up pages from his folio of Haiku for the age of Flickr, YouTube,
Twitter and Facebook. Included in this selection is his commentary on gays
in the U.S. military and the policy of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell."
Theatre Review: 5 February 2010
San Diego, California
Whisper House:
Murmurs of Something Great
All the ingredients are there,
but before Whisper House can find success, some serious tinkering
with the recipe is needed.
Tech: 29 January 2010
Washington, DC
How To Create Green
Jobs in America?
Bring Back the Bidet
Once reserved for
Europeans, bidets are now popular all over the world — except in North
America.
News Analysis: 24 January 2010
San Francisco
Environmental
Concerns After Haiti's Earthquake
The lack of trees because of
deforestation in Haiti causes huge soil erosion problems, threatening both
food and clean water sources in this country of 9.7 million people that is
the poorest in the Western hemisphere.
Film Reivew: 12 January 2010
London
Avatar
In
director James Cameron’s mega-marketed Hollywood hoop-de-doo, we ar e
presented with a wild blue yonder that is depressingly constrained by
Earth-bound conventions.
Tech: 25 December 2009
New York
One
Laptop Per Child Drives Breakthrough in New XO Design for Children’s
Laptop.
OLPC chairman Nicholas Negroponte and MIT Media Lab
announce new designs for children's laptop.
Books: 3 November 2009
Los Angeles
A Book by its
Cover
In the first of a series of humor essays, O. Tyrone Shulaise
imagines what the final page of a particularly torrid (and actual!) 1960s
pulp novel might be, based solely on the appearance of its cover.
Style: 31 October 2009
New York
Real Men Don't Shop
(at least not for fashion)
The average man’s attention span and
patience for clothes shopping is notoriously brief. Are retailers to
blame?
News: 6 October 2009
Paris
Life
Quality Quantified: The Brutality of Happenstance
In one moment,
two babies – one born in Norway and the other in Niger – largely have
their fates sealed, as demonstrated by the 2009 Human Development
Index.
Cinema / Style: 25 September 2009
New York
The
September Issue, or Grace Under Pressure
As seen in R.J.
Cutler’s new documentary, if Anna Wintour reigns as the seated monarch at
Vogue, it is Grace Coddington, the magazine’s Creative Director,
who might just be considered its éminence grise.
News Editorial: 19 Septembre
2009
Paris
Les
101 Gestes du Président Américain
No. 24: L'Appel Direct au Peuple:
Exercice Périlleux
Comment: 8 September 2009
New York
Time for a
"Fourth Estate" Tax?
Are the titans of "real" journalism — the
type that is expensive, exhaustive, essential to a functioning Democracy
and not terribly Internet friendly — a doomed group? Would Americans pay a
tax to keep them from dying out? Alan Behr offers his perspective.
Comment: 19 August 2009
New York
Is "Clean Coal"
Really Clean?
Coal wreaks environmental havoc, from the coal mining
that pollutes rivers and streams, to the premature deaths of coal miners
from accidents and lung diseases, to the release of greenhouse gases,
mercury and other toxins at power plants.
Book Review: 21 July 2009
New York
The Inner World of
Farm Animals
In her fascinating, good-for-all-ages book, Amy
Hatkoff not only re-introduces us to familiar farm animals, but makes
their lives and characters sweetly compelling.
Comment: 7 July 2009
New York
Hippocratic
or Hypocritical? When Medical Information is Flawed, Who is
Responsible?
In the wake of the Dalkon Shield and Vioxx,
is it any wonder that patients, in an effort to educate themselves, are
seduced by the slick marketing efforts of everyone from Big Pharma to late
night snake oil salesmen?
Book Review: 30 June 2009
New York
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: 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: 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.
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. |
Memphis: A New
Musical
on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre
in New
York
Recent Archives
François-Dominique
Toussaint L'Ouverture (1743 - 1803)
Égalité For All: Toussaint
L'Ouverture
and the Haitian Revolution
Time for a
"Fourth Estate" Tax?
Tips for Evening
Dress
Interview: 3 August 2009
Tokyo
Hammer (and Sickle) Time
for Japan?
Periods of global financial turmoil provide fertile
ground for Communist movements, even in the least likely places. C.B.
Liddel profiles the head of the Japan Communist Party, Kazuo Shii.
Film Review: 27 July 2009
London
Afghan Star
Can an
"American Idol"-type contest succeed where the Russians, the Taliban and
the United States have failed? Havana Marking’s new film sheds light on
that unlikeliest of likely possibilities.
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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