I love South Carolina. Some of the friendliest, most hospitable people I’ve ever met. But, as Tom Turnipseed says in Boogie Man, the place is “too small to be a country, too big for an insane asylum.”
President Carter just called out SC Rep. Joe Wilson for his “You Lie!” outburst.
“That racism inclination still exists, and [...]

Posted: September 16, 2009 1 Comment

From a fascinating essay on Tarantino by Johann Hari:
“I don’t believe works of art should be ennobling. I don’t believe the heroes should be virtuous, or that bad characters should get their comeuppance. It can show deeply violent and deeply cruel people, and tell us that — as in real life — they can be [...]

Posted: August 31, 2009 Leave a Comment

Roger Ebert wrote this in his Boogie Man review last year:
“A fascinating portrait of an almost likable rogue…It makes a companion piece to Oliver Stone’s W…a remarkable portrait…heartbreaking.”
Now he sees a connection to the health care debates:
“I saw a documentary last year about Lee Atwater, the strategist for the Reagan and George H. W. Bush [...]

Posted: August 19, 2009 Comments Off

It was all a mistake! The “Wolf in the woods” ad, the “Weatherman” ad, the “Pedophile” ad, Palin’s “pallin’ around with terrorists” rhetoric, her failure to censure those in her crowds shouting things like “Kill him!”, McCain’s failure to strongly condemn these things…
What McCain should have done is focus on racial fear tactics.
From personal conversations, [...]

Posted: July 15, 2009 Leave a Comment

A great honor. “Considered one of the nation’s most prestigious news awards, the Murrow awards have honored outstanding achievements in electronic journalism since 1971. Submissions are judged by a panel of journalists both regionally and nationwide.”
More later.

Posted: June 29, 2009 Leave a Comment

411 from the 202 & the 323
We just checked out Barry Levinson’s (Rain Man, Diner, Wag the Dog etc.) new documentary Poliwood at its Tribeca Film Festival premiere. It’s about a bunch of actors, including Spike Lee, Ron Silver, Ellen Burstyn, Susan Sarandon, and Anne Hathaway, who go to the ‘08 GOP and Dem Conventions [...]

Posted: May 13, 2009 Leave a Comment

It was a great honor to be invited on the Polk Awards seminar panel. It was broadcast on NPR and moderated by Alex Jones, director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government.
Columbia-Dupont Award Winner Adam Davidson of NPR livened up the panel a just [...]

Posted: February 20, 2009 Leave a Comment

I was pretty curious about meeting former Dem nominee Mike Dukakis. After having suffered Lee Atwater’s relentless attacks in ‘88 (and utterly failing to respond in time), he was hit with one of the worst mixtures of ridicule and obscurity the Dem party ever gave a losing candidate.
How had The Duke weathered the storm? Would [...]

Posted: May 20, 2008 Leave a Comment