Open Levinson
Paul Levinson
- Location
- New York City, New York, USA
- Birthday
- March 25
- Title
- Professor
- Company
- Fordham University
- Bio
- Paul Levinson's The Silk Code won the 2000 Locus Award for Best First Novel. He has since published Borrowed Tides (2001),
The Consciousness Plague (2002), The Pixel Eye (2003), and The Plot To Save Socrates (2006). His science fiction and mystery short stories have been nominated for Nebula, Hugo, Edgar, and Sturgeon Awards. His eight nonfiction books, including The Soft Edge (1997), Digital McLuhan (1999), Realspace (2003), and Cellphone (2004),
have been the subject of major articles in the New York Times, Wired, the Christian Science Monitor, and have been translated into ten languages. New New Media, exploring how Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and blogging have changed our lives, was published in September 2009. Paul Levinson appears on "The O'Reilly Factor" (Fox News), "The CBS Evening News," the “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” (PBS), “Nightline” (ABC), and
numerous national and international TV and radio programs. He reviews the best of television in his InfiniteRegress.tv blog. Paul Levinson is Professor of Communication & Media Studies at Fordham University in New York City
MY RECENT COMMENTS
- “Thanks, judi
-
I've noticed, here,
there, and everywhere, that
these
right-wing
Ne…”
November 05, 2009 01:08AM - “Not a chance, Jason. If
you don't like my
political
commentary, dial on
and read…”
November 04, 2009 11:28PM - “Philos and Kentippo:
What I think happened is this:
Bream's
segment was not
pro…”
October 31, 2009 02:04AM - “Thanks, Karolyn - and,
thanks, too, Caroline,
Tim4change, and
just about
everyone…”
October 29, 2009 01:50PM - “poorsinner wrote: "I 'm
sure you're a liberal
professor
fixated on the
bias…”
October 29, 2009 01:44PM
According to Sam Stein in the Huffington Post, Sonia Sotomayor is "the odds-on favorite" to be chosen by Barack Obama to fill retiring Justice David Souter's seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. She now sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals of the Second Circuit in New York City. She is… Read full post »
I never thought I'd enjoy a Presidential Inauguration as much as I did JFK's in 1960, when I was a kid and I saw it on a black-and-white television, but Barack Obama's today was every bit as good on the big color screen, and even more revolutionary. The son of an… Read full post »
Well, the first of the final Battlestar Galactica episodes, like
the Final Five, was wrapped in enigma and jolting surprise...
Dee finds a child's jacks toy on "Earth" - revealed last year as a
radioactive ruin of a planet, and revealed in this episode as
populated entirely, at least insofar as the… Read full post »
I'm listening to Bobby Jindal - Governor of Louisiana - give the
Republican response to Barack Obama's superb address to Congress
and the American people tonight.
I've got to say that Jindal's speech - in delivery as well as
content - is one the lamest "opposition" speeches I've ever heard
any Republi… Read full post »
Another top-notch, wrenching, conceptually breathtaking time
travel story on Lost
tonight - 5.14 - which skirts around paradox, but is thoroughly
explicable on the basis of obsessed human nature.
Daniel has returned to the island in 1977 - that is, the Daniel we
know, who lost his love Charlotte, and… Read full post »
Tonight's Mad Men had a great shot on television of the
1951 Robert Wise science fiction classic, The Day the Earth Stood Still with
Michael Rennie. And especially apt, because the remake will be
opening this December 12, starring ... Jon Hamm. "Klaatu barada
nikto."
Also
appropriate because th… Read full post »
Well, once again, my intrepid powers of analysis and prediction
have apparently been proven ... wrong.
Last week, I said I couldn't believe that Tony was bad. Truthfully,
I still can't believe it this week, but in the Season 7 Hour 19 I
just saw, Tony sure looks that way. Jack… Read full post »
I've been saying for years that Shep Smith, who anchors the Fox Report on Fox News, is a class act. He did an heroic job - along Anderson Cooper of CNN, Geraldo Rivera of Fox News, and other reporters on the scene -- in holding the Bush government to account for… Read full post »
Barack Obama did fine in the short piece of his interview by Bill O'Reilly which was aired on Fox News tonight. This piece had to do with foreign relations. O'Reilly gave Obama credit for being against the Iraq war in the first place, but asked why Obama couldn't admit that he… Read full post »
I just saw Sarah Palin in the Saturday Night Live opener.
Palin's skit revolved around the indistinguishability of her and
Tina Fey's impression of her. The highpoint was a bit in which Alec
Baldwin - Fey's co-star on 30 Rock - mistakes Palin for Fey.
And Palin was excellent. And that's the… Read full post »
It's being reported all over that Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews will no longer be anchoring special election coverage on MSNBC. In terms of what's ahead in this political season, this means we won't see them anchoring election night or debate coverage. They will both continue in their Countdown… Read full post »
I saw this out of the corner of my eye on MSNBC earlier today, and couldn't believe my ears - a Republican speaking with dripping derision about "the outrage" of Obama "taking a 767 campaign plane to go visit Grandma." Keith Olbermann performed the important service of replaying and highlighting this… Read full post »
Rod Blagojevich just announced that he won't resign as Governor
of Illinois, and will fight the charges that Federal Prosecutor
Patrick Fitzgerald made against him.
I think that's for the good of the country - seriously. Our laws
say that people accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Not… Read full post »
24 waited for tonight's Hour 18 to reveal the most
astonishing surprise of the Season (7) ....
So astonishing, in fact, that I don't know if I believe it. But I'm
not sure...
First, Hodges and his plan to launch missiles with bio weapons
against American cities seems foiled. Tony blew… Read full post »
U.S. News and World Report reports that "The ratings for
MSNBC's newest news show host are wildly impressive. Last week, her
second on the air, Rachel Maddow pulled ahead of Larry King and
even bested Keith Olbermann's Countdown a couple of nights."
I'm delighted, and not at all surprised. Maddow shin… Read full post »
I've got to say I have no respect for Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH),
who just withdrew as President Obama's Commerce Secretary
nominee.
Gregg says he realized he couldn't be a team player in the Obama
administration, much as he admired the President.
The truth, obviously, is something else: The Republicans… Read full post »
I was just looking for a few minutes at MSNBC. You know what
they were reporting? Nothing, really. From 6-8PM, and who knows how
much longer today, MSNBC had on its canned "Caught on Camera," with
footage of events that happened years ago.
Over on CNN, Wolf Blizter in the Situation Room… Read full post »
The lesson of the JFK-Nixon Presidential debates is that what
the candidates look like on stage - how they react, nonverbally, to
their opponent's points - can be more important to voters than what
they actually say.
Barack Obama clearly won on that important plank in the debate
tonight. Obama was rel… Read full post »
The Sci Fi Channel has been getting a lot of
flack for daring to change its name to the Syfy Channel,
effective this July 7. I thought I'd be pop in to say, I have no
problem with the name change at all. Here are five reasons why:
1. Words don't mean… Read full post »
Well, I predicted last
week that Godric would not survive the bomb blast. I was wrong
- he did survive. But I was right that he would not survive too
long.
True Blood 2.9 had an ending that cried out to the cosmos, as
Godric stands on the roof in the dawning… Read full post »
The most tender of the final Battlestar Galactica episodes thus far
- but laced with a powerful wind-up punch ...
Just what you'd expect, come to think of it, in a story starring
Sharon "Boomer" Valeri. She tells Tyrol that she's thought of him
every night "since I died in your arms".… Read full post »
A quiet, emotional Lost
5.13 tonight, as befits a character - Miles - who can listen to the
dead, and who is also the abandoned son of Dr. Chang aka Marvin
Candle.
On the island in 1977, we see Miles meet his father - someone who
left his mother and him, when… Read full post »
John McCain just called for postponing Friday's debate with
Barack Obama, so that McCain's attention can be fully devoted to
helping with our economic crisis.
I hope Obama rejects McCain's call for what it is: an attempt to
take a breather from the campaign, because polls are beginning to
turn against… Read full post »
Gotta love this ... Here's Al Franken, back in the 1980s, doing
a super fine Mick Jagger, singing "Under My Thumb" ... Tom Davis,
Franken's Saturday Night Live partner, is on stage playing Keith
Richards and his face and guitar, too...
Good to know there's that kind of talent coming to the… Read full post »
One of the most satisfying, intellectually and emotional daring,
and thoroughly brilliant episodes of Lost tonight - 5.15 - which is making
me think it is well on the way to being the best series ever on
television.
Among the many themes, spun and some resolved, most unresolved,
that especially grabbe… Read full post »
Paul Levinson's Favorites
Updates
-
I Am Thankful for Roseanne's Christmas Episode
-
My Sustainable Locovarian Thanksgiving
-
On Building Better Mousetraps
-
Your Thanksgiving Scolding, Get It While It's Hot
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Deer and turkey surveillance photos from this morning
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Ok, Ok, I'm Thankful!
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Diamonds and Rust, Live Blogging Christmas in the Heart
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A Turkey Tale: Seven in the City
Salon.com