The new issue of The Atlantic features an exceptionally good article by the impressive Chrystia Freeland called “The Rise of the New Global Elite.” The excellent article describes a new aristocracy whose power reaches across boundaries, whose ability to act in its own self-interest is probably impervious to national governments, and, perhaps most alarmingly, whose …
In the Times today, David Brooks takes on those in the media who would lay the acts of an apparently quite mad Jared Loughner at the door of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, et al. “These accusations — that political actors contributed to the murder of 6 people, including a 9-year-old girl — are extremely grave,” …
Ginny and I had the pleasure yesterday of going to the Jacob Burns Center and not only seeing The Way Back, the new film by Peter Weir, but also hearing the great Weir talk about the movie in an interview with Janet Maslin. The Way Back is a fictionalized version of The Long Walk, Slavomir …
In conjunction with the AHA annual meeting in Boston, the History News Network of George Mason University announced the sixth annual Cliopatria Awards for History Blogging on Friday. The award for Best Series of Posts went to Jamie Malanowski, David Blight, William Freehling, Adam Goodheart, and others, for Disunion, on the New York Times Opinionator …
One of the hardest things to do is to explain to a young person what it was like when something that has become established and famous was brand new. This clip of Mel Brooks appearing on The Dick Cavett Show offers a small bit of what it was like when he was first rolling out …
The Washington Monthly has just published my review of Moneymakers: The Wicked Lives and Surprising Adventures of Three Notorious Counterfeiters, the new book by Ben Tarnoff about three American counterfeiters who plied their trade between 1750 and 1865. In reading this entertaining, educational history, I was struck by how useful the idea of counterfeiting is …
The very sexy Anne Francis, a native of Ossining, died yesterday at the age of 80. Many know her best for her portrayal of Altaira in the sci fi classic Forbidden Planet (“Anne Francis stars in Forbidden Planet” goes the line in “Science Fiction/Double Feature,” a song from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. She also …
It’s hard to beat David Thomson as a writer or as a film critic, but Mr. Nice he is not. Thomson can often be quite mean about Hollywood stars, and as The Hollywood Reporter disclosed this weekend, he uses the latest edition of his New Biographical Dictionary of Film to chop some new meat. Here …
One man’s completely idiosyncratic, entirely personal, possibly not even defensible list of the best of 2010: 1.) Michael Bloomberg‘s strirring, eloquent defense of Freedom of Religion generally and of an Islamic Community Center (not mosque) in Lower Manhattan (not Ground Zero). 2.) Writing about the Disunion Crisis for The New York Times 3.) Dinner in …