Archives for April 2005

Consider this from Roger Ebert’s review of “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room”: The most shocking material in the film involves the fact that Enron cynically and knowingly created the phony California energy crisis. … If the crisis had been created by Al Qaeda, if terrorists had shut down half of California’s power plants, […]

The Chicago Reader’s Michael Miner made a great catch for the annals of copyediting. He notes in his Hot Type column: A couple of misplaced commas in an April 20 New York Times editorial transform a solemn tone into a haughty one: “There is no reason to expect any change, of course, for the church […]

We come finally to “Greenwich Village” in Bill Osborne’s video impressions of New York. It’s a festival of storefronts and street corners, monuments and sex boutiques, mannequins and, most of all, lovely architectural facades — in all a sweet commentary set to Ravel’s playful “Chants populaires: no 1, Chanson espagnole.” Put on your headphones, click […]

Two quick notes from my staff of thousands before it continues posting Big Apple Portraits: 1) Don’t miss this morning’s interview of antiwar activist and historian Howard Zinn on Democracy Now! And 2) check out Forward Command Post, a k a “Barbie’s Dream House,” from the toy section of an old J.C. Penney catalog, (brought […]

Straight Up’s staff of thousands interrupts Big Apple Portraits to bring you this news: author/journalist David Ehrenstein has listed his 10 must-read blogs in the current issue of The Advocate. Among them, he includes Straight Up. The pleasure of being listed is that he puts us in such great company. The other nine blogs are: […]

And now we come to “Inwood,” Bill Osborne’s video impressions of the largely Hispanic, upper Manhattan neighborhood where he lived on his recent stay in New York. The images convey a very different city from both the glamorous hustle of Times Square at night, in Part 1, and the austere presence of the art deco […]

Since I’m away, my staff of thousands has come up with a brilliant idea to amuse you and me together: Videos by the composer Bill Osborne, which he made on the fly while he was in New York not long ago. He thinks of them as improvised Big Apple portraits, which he’s edited to fit […]

Since I’m away from the Big Apple, Straight Up’s staff of thousands has had a brilliant idea to amuse you and me together. It will be posting a series of short videos made on the fly by my friend, the composer Bill Osborne, while he was in New York not long ago. He thinks of […]

Given Tom DeLay’s pious horseshit, Bill Frist’s equally pious participation in an upcoming church-sponsored telecast to portray the Democratic “opposition to certain judicial nominees” as an assault on “people of faith” — not to mention the election of the new pope Benedict XVI — my staff of thousands thought it useful to post “God’s Total […]

We interrupt holiday in the Pacific — “we,” as in Straight Up’s staff of thousands — to ask what happened to the KCRW report by David D’Arcy on “the effort to recover the art stolen by the Nazi and the complications involved in that,” which was to air on April 5? Some of you may […]

Goin’ to an island in the Pacific. Goin’ without my laptop. Back later. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

Word comes from David D’Arcy that he’ll be back on the air, though not at National Public Radio. The top-notch arts reporter axed by, after Ronald Lauder’s minions at the Museum of Modern Art complained about an exposé of his they didn’t like, is to host a show on Los Angeles radio station KCRW on […]

Remember those prepackaged news stories — a k a Video News Releases (VNRs) –which Bush regime is so fond of distributing? Well, the Government Accountability Office today issued this decision by the Comptroller General. Here’s the bad news: Prepackaged news stories are complete, audio-video presentations that may be included in video news releases, or VNRs. […]

Like a lot of Democrats, I get messages from Mark Green, the former public advocate for New York City and the president of the New Democracy Project. As much as I agree with his low opinion of our Dear Leader, I can’t help noticing: Green’s latest message delivered the same old, same old, and did […]

As Gawker says about David Brooks’s blooper correction: “We’d roll the laugh track if anyone actually knew what the hell he was talking about. Or cared.” Also, check Paul Krugman’s funny-if-it-wasn’t-so-true refer (this morning, too): In its April Fools’ Day issue, Scientific American published a spoof editorial in which it apologized for endorsing the theory […]