Several recent posts have documented the latest appearences of the notorious hate group known as the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan. Four years ago, the sons and daughters of the Rev. Fred Phelps descended like a latter-day Biblical plague on the college town of New Paltz, N.Y,… Read full post »

She's been that way all her life. Let me show you some photos:

Here she is sitting on a picnic blanket, looking up at my adoring father,  the the guy behind the camera. They're not married yet,… Read full post »

Journalism, like every other profession, speaks its own language. Unlike every other profession, journalists speak this language publicly. And though it appears paradoxical, journalese is also a secret language, even, sometimes, to its practitioners. Unless, of course, you've… Read full post »

Master journalist Pete Hamill gave a talk entitled "Our Imperfect Craft" to a group of mostly young journalsits from around the country Friday evening. The occasion was the first Mike Levine Writers Workshop. I don't have a transcript but I do have a few pertinent quotes:… Read full post »

 

This past weekend's front-page focus at OS on the parlous state of journalism held more than a theoretical or ideological interest for me. I'm a newspaper reporter, so there's nothing abstract about the issues surrounding whether and how newspapers will survive.

Everybody has a theory about "the med
…

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When it comes to failure, insurance giant AIG had re-written the book. I won't bore you with the financials here.

I recently received a comment from LadyMiko, complimenting me on a post I had written a couple of weeks ago. I was surprised and delighted. My experience since discovering OS three months ago has been that posts have a shelf life of about 48 hours, at most. After that, it's like… Read full post »

I've decided to take resistanceisfertile's suggestion and post my comment on the Bill Maher Question: Maybe if he  (or one of his crew) had at least acknowledged the scads of comments . . . Here 'tis:

Bill: Welcome to the OS neighborhood. It's not every day that a celebrity satirist/writer/perf… Read full post »

The Catholic Church is bringing back a theological Golden Oldie called "plenary indulgences."

To Catholic Boomers like myself -- Caboomers -- indulgences were nothing less than a ticket to Heaven -- a free pass from purgatory's fires  for you and yours, a bailout for your very soul. Indulgences… Read full post »

Last fall, I strolled around the Woodstock Film Festival looking like this, my last shreds of dignity forfeited in the name of journalistic inquiry. I'd like to ask the same question of OSers as well.

The first thing most folks said when they saw me coming was "Great question!" The… Read full post »

“That is pretty draconian — $500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly if there is no bonus,”—James F. Reda, corporate consultant commenting in the NYT on President Obama’s plan to limit the size of salaries for executives receiving federal bailout money. 

&ldquo… Read full post »

"An honest mistake" -- The point from which, once admitted, a politician yearns to "move on."

"To move on" -- The publicly pinioned politician's starkest wish;  to pretend, against all evidence, that what the whole world knows is true isn't so and really, when all is said and done, doesn't matte… Read full post »

Though I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy -- I still don't have a Facebook page, prefer CDs to MP3s, wish snap-brim fedoras would come back in style  -- I have to admit that thing Amazon's been selling a ton of is my nominee for Transformative Technological Piece of the year.… Read full post »

"Any rookie coming into the National Football League has what could be loosely termed his 'welcome to the N.F.L''' moment." - NYT, 1/28/09

In the summer of 1966, I was drafted by the Buffalo Bills and given a one-season, no-cut contract. There was nothing I could do about it, though I… Read full post »