June 2009
Motherhood, Sex and a Women's Deepest Fears by Deborah Orr
The new Lars von Trier movie "Antichrist" makes us face our unhealthy assumptions about motherhood and sexuality.
There just aren't many really good roles for women in the movies, are there? Especially when they are over 30. It's a common, irrefutable complaint, and one that implies an institutional, even cultural bias. So it's slightly weird that the one film director who nearly always opts to have a woman as his central character is so regularly labeled a misogynist.
A Brief History of the Radical Right by James Ridgeway
Explaining Scott Roeder’s journey from anti-government extremist to anti-abortion fanatic.
"3 Feet High and Rising": De La Soul's Track by Track Guide to Groundbreaking 1989 LP by Evan Serpick
Mase, Posdnous and Trugoy on the album that introduced a funkier, sunnier hip-hop
This Time, Pixar Has Gone Too Far by Eileen Jones
Pixar, the inheritor of Disney's cheesy style, has been pushed to dangerously high glucose levels with their new animated film.
'It's time to enshrine Hank Paulson as national hero' ... what the fuck? by Matt Taibbi
"Hank Paulson is a national hero.
I said it last October and I'm sticking by it. And now, there's actual evidence to back me up. The TARP bailout worked. The Wall Street crisis is over."
-- Evan Newmark, "It's Time to Enshrine Hank Paulson as National Hero," Wall Street Journal.
So here's the letter I wrote to the Wall Street Journal after reading Evan Newmark's paean to Hank Paulson last week:
Dear WSJ,
Film aims to expose dangers in U.S. food industry by Christine Kearney
Bigger-breasted chickens fattened artificially. New strains of deadly E. coli bacteria. A food supply controlled by a handful of corporations.
The documentary "Food, Inc." opens in the United States on Friday and portrays these purported dangers and changes in the U.S. food industry, asserting harmful effects on public health, the environment, and worker and animal rights.
The genius of George Orwell by Jeremy Paxman
Next week marks the 60th anniversary of the publication of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Jeremy Paxman pays tribute to one of England's greatest writers.
If you want to learn how to write non-fiction, Orwell is your man. He may be known worldwide for his last two novels, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. But, for me, his best work is his essays.
Wall Street’s Toxic Message by Joseph Stiglitz
When the current crisis is over, the reputation of American-style capitalism will have taken a beating—not least because of the gap between what Washington practices and what it preaches. Disillusioned developing nations may well turn their backs on the free market, warns Nobel laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz, posing new threats to global stability and U.S. security.
Grand Theft Auto: How Stevie the Rat bankrupted GM by Greg Palast
Screw the autoworkers.
They may be crying about General Motors' bankruptcy today. But dumping 40,000 of the last 60,000 union jobs into a mass grave won't spoil Jamie Dimon's day.
Five Mistakes Filmmakers Make in Depicting Racial Dynamics by Mikhail Lyubansky
Every so often, Hollywood produces a film about racial issues that is so honest, so truthful, so powerful that I wish every person could see it. Do The Right Thing (1989) was one such film. Crash (2005) was another. It's not that these are perfect films, just that they know how to deal with the racial themes they take on. Unfortunately, these films are the exception rather than the rule.
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