Also: '80s Nostalgia Just a Bad Rerun of "Excess, Jingoism" of Reagan Era
By
Clay Waters
January 25, 2008 - 2:07pm
"There is no startling new information in the archive, because all the documents have been published previously. But the new computer tool is remarkable for its scope, and its replay of the crescendo of statements that led to the war. Muckrakers may find browsing the site reminiscent of what Richard M. Nixon used to dismissively call 'wallowing in Watergate.'" - From John Cushner Jr.'s story lauding a new anti-war database from the left-wing Center for Public Integrity, January 23.
Sad Sack Predicts Doom for U.S.
"Now, Americans feel a loss of autonomy, in their own lives and in the nation. Their politics are driven by the powerlessness they feel to control their financial well-being, their safety, their environment, their health and the country's borders. They question whether each generation will continue to ascend the economic ladder. That the political system seems so impotent only deepens their frustration and their insistence on results." - Kevin Sack, January 24.
Never Miss a Chance to Make a Political Statement
"Given the maiming and killing in Iraq and Afghanistan, the time seems nigh to revisit Kurt Vonnegut's antiwar 1969 masterpiece, 'Slaughterhouse-Five.' Few in the theater are better qualified to do so than the director Joe Tantalo and his Off Broadway troupe, Godlight Theater Company, which has made a specialty of exuberant, muscular adaptations of literate science fiction, including a provocative take on 'Fahrenheit 451' in 2006." - Theatre critic Andy Webster on a stage adaptation of the anti-war novel, January 23.
The Evil that Is Coal
"Someday there will be a museum dedicated to all the dirty elements dragged out of the earth to keep us warm and spin our generators. See there, son, a grizzled Gen Xer will say over a barrel of oil, that ancient gunk nearly enslaved us to 12th-century theocrats in the Mideast. And check out those black nuggets - coal, a fossilized time bomb hauled out of the deepest holes in the earth and then belched back into the air as a planet-smothering byproduct. Nearly killed us, the whole lot of it. " - Former Times reporter Timothy Egan, reviewing "Coal River," a muckraking book by Michael Shnayerson, January 20.
Times' Toadying Public Editor Thinks Criticism = "Bullying"
"A conservative blogger who takes frequent shots at Greenhouse, M. Edward Whelan III, pointed out Fidell's involvement in the cases and said it created a conflict of interest for the Times reporter....Whelan is president of the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center. But his increasingly intemperate and personal attacks on Greenhouse indicate something other than a legitimate concern about ethics. They feel more like bullying." - Public Editor Clark Hoyt, lashing out at National Review Online "Bench Memos" blogger Ed Whelan while defending liberal Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse from criticism over conflicts of interest, January 20.
Alessandra Plays Economic Cassandra
"The gloom is understandable, of course. The economy and the political landscape today are weighed down with the steady lowering of middle-class expectations. The young know better than to assume that they will be better off than their parents; the old cling to the railing, fearful of falling beyond the reach of pensions and Social Security payments." - TV-beat reporter Alessandra Stanley in a review of the new AMC series "Breaking Bad," January 20.
'80s Nostalgia: A BadRerun of the Reagan Era
"The leading action symbols of the Reagan era - with all their excess, jingoism and good vs. evil bombast - have returned, as outsize and obvious as they were in the decade of stonewash. Yet as stars of prime-time hits and feature films (not to mention Republican mascots), these actors are still as ripped and imposing as they were 20 years ago, and they continue to carry an undeniable authority with fans old and new." - Style reporter Alex Williams on the revival as Internet cult figures of various archetypal '80s celebrities, January 13.
Boo Hoo