So President Bush remains adamant that Iran is a threat? Even after his own intelligence services have told him otherwise? Why am I not surprised? I’m reading Frank Rich’s book The Greatest Story Ever Sold right now, and it’s all sounding very familiar. I just hope that the presidential election campaign can steamroll any “ambitions” that Dubya has for adding to his collection of wars.
Tag: journalism
Best. Correction. Ever.
The statement “In New York City, someone stole the penis of a chocolate Jesus” is not true; the source was a satire website that was mistakenly thought to be a genuine news source. Harper’s Weekly apologizes for the error.
Harper’s Weekly is an email with a bunch of odd news mixed in with more serious stuff. The fact that it’s usually pretty funny all on its own made this “retraction” even better.
By the way, Harper’s recently revealed an amazing new site with access to PDF scans of their entire 150 years of back issues, free for subscribers. After my complaints about the lack of a DVD archive, this is amazing news. No new, potentially obsolete hardware to buy, just a low rate of US$16.97 per year, and that gets me the printed magazine as well. Genius! Big ups to the brilliant Paul Ford, who’s behind the curtain.
Shock Tactics
I was reading an article by Alex Ross in this week’s New Yorker about German philosopher and music critic Theodor Adorno when I was stopped cold by the following paragraph:
Tragically, Adorno was himself a victim of the shock tactics of pop culture. In April, 1969, a group of female activists interrupted his lecture “An Introduction to Dialectical Thinking” by flashing their breasts in his face and taunting him with flowers. He died a few months later, on August 6, 1969. It was twenty-four years to the day after the atomic destruction of Hiroshima.
Was anyone else crumpled into laughter? Maybe you’d need to read the whole article to find this funny. Adorno was a very serious guy, and the serious way this “attack” was described just reduced me to giggles. That’s just me, I guess.
A Conjugal Visit
Brooke met John Jaffey in journalism school. This fascinating man was a lawyer until his fraud conviction. He spent several years in prison, and entered journalism school for a fresh start. He’s a wonderful man who made some bad choices earlier in his life. I recently found his moving article, “A Conjugal Visit” on Saturday Night‘s web site. Read it now!