June 17, 2005
Dictator in a "Spiffy Suit"
In 1955 a clean-shaven young man in a spiffy suit came to New York with the
wild notion of raising money to finance a revolution in his homeland, Cuba. Even
then Fidel Castro knew the value of a good photo-op, so he was glad to meet a
countryman, Osvaldo Salas, who lived with his family in the Bronx and made a
living as a photographer.
- Annette Grant, June 12
.
"Thousands" Sent to Stalin's
Gulag?
"The [Amnesty International] report, released May 25, placed the United States
at the heart of its list of human rights offenders, citing indefinite detentions
of prisoners at Guantnamo Bay, prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and secret
renditions of prisoners to countries that practice torture. But it is the use of
the word gulag, a reference to the complex of labor camps where Stalin sent
thousands of dissidents, that has drawn the most attention."
- Lizette Alvarez, June 4. It's estimated some 2.7 million perished in
Stalin's slave labor camps.
Tittering Red-State Racists
A look at the audience at any Blue Collar concert reveals a sea of white faces,
and a large proportion of women. It's an audience that roars at Larry the Cable
Guy's bawdy Southern good ol' boy observations (though Mr. Whitney is from
Nebraska), appreciates that Mr. Foxworthy shuns four-letter words and titters at
jokes that skewer their fear and distrust of minorities - as long as the humor
doesn't express overt dislike for any single minority."
- Culture reporter Ross Johnson on the "Blue Collar Comedy Tour," June
13.
"Powerful Men" Keeping Women Down
in Italy
"As Italy's most powerful men - from politicians to bishops - debated the
ethics of the country's restrictive fertility law this week, Lorena Pennati lay
gingerly in a hospital bed here, rubbing the sore spot where doctors had just
removed nine of her eggs. Because of the law's strict limits on the use of eggs,
sperm and embryos - the subject of a contentious national referendum here this
weekend - Ms. Pennati, 34, is embarking on what doctors universally regard as
substandard infertility treatment.
- Elisabeth Rosenthal and Elisabetta Povoledo, June 11.
We're Not
"Comedian for Senator? Don't Laugh."
- Headline to David Carr's June 15 story on left-wing comedian and
radio host Al Franken.
The "Relatively Untrammeled
Capitalism" of Britain?
"Mr. Blair has also cast Europe's division as one of profound dimensions between
the so-called Anglo-Saxon economic model of relatively untrammeled capitalism
that prevails in Britain and the cozier, socially oriented approaches of France
and Germany."
- Alan Cowell, June 7
Reality Check: Britain's top marginal tax rate is 40%, and the country
practices socialized medicine through its National Health Service.
First Lady Laura Bush: Ignorant
or Malicious?
"To some Egyptian critics, Mrs. Bush did not know what she was talking about. To
others, she knew precisely what she was talking about, which they termed the
essence of the problem. Her words, they said, reflected the two contradictory
stances of the administration's policy in the Middle East."
- Elisabeth Bumiller, June 6.
Ann Coulter Loves Torture
""The season's only innovation was the Ann Coulterish sensibility veining
the plot: that nice middle-class Muslim family turned out to be a sleeper cell
of terrorist moles, and torture was a post-Sept. 11 necessity that only
pantywaist Washington bureaucrats found objectionable."
- TV critic Alessandra Stanley on the Fox show "24," June 6.
