A thousand news stories will never convey the demeaning hopelessness instilled in sick people by our disgraceful managed health care system as well as Fionnula Flanagan (inset) did last night in Brotherhood, Blake Masters’ superb Showtime television series.
This gifted actress portrayed the denigration of the human soul by the dehumanizing telephone tree of a pharmaceutical [...]
Is the nature of airwave journalism contributing to the polarization of American culture? I think so.
Many Americans, young and old, are abandoning television and radio journalism to turn to the Internet for information, rendering airwave journalism a dinosaur.
I look at this situation as a poet and journalist. What I see are formats in which people [...]
Some people are holding parties. Some are learning what it’s like to walk on air. Some are gagging on their anger. But whether jubilation or fulmination is your dish of tea, I have something in mind that perhaps we might all celebrate: The New York Times on its op-ed page the day after our momentous [...]
Read More...While we play factual ping pong with the debate about Internet publishing its most profound issue, cultural gatekeeping, keeps getting lost.
There is a story about Kindle, the Amazon hand-held reading device. Ping. Then there is a story about copyright. Pong. There is a story about the Big Six book publishers worrying about market share. Ping. [...]
My wife and I rearranged our living room the other day. “Living room” has always struck me as a feckless term, questioning as it does what one does in other rooms. Our project was no mean feat, given our cranky backs and comic geometric discourse.
When we were done I glanced around the room, which also [...]
In yesterday’s New York Times Dave Itzkoff writes that CNN’s D.L. Hughley Breaks the News, a comedy-news show that premiered last night, “represents the channel’s belated (and risky) entry into the well-established genre of news delivered with a satirical smile.”
I don’t know how Mr. Hughley is going to break the news, and I don’t know [...]
Out of the mouths of babes and gaffers: We were sitting watching TV one sleepless night when I asked my wife, Is there anything lighter than the news we could watch? I meant some episodic repeat, but we broke into laughter before she could answer. No, there was nothing lighter than the news, not even [...]
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