News
Ron Silver 1946 – 2009
Ron Silver died in his sleep on Sunday at his home in Manhattan. He was 62. When I was named editor of Saturday Review in 1984, one of my first tasks was to liven up that distinguished by moribund institution. In my search for interesting and unusual reviewers and...
Annals of the Obama Administration
Jon Stewart got a lot of attention last week because of his memorable face off with Jim Cramer. But he also took an amusing look at some of the gee whiz aspects of the President's schedule (and there do seem to be a lot of them).
As Others See Us
("L'Amerique Septentrionale Divisee En Ses Principales Parties ..." This map of North America, from Pierre Mortier's Atlas Nouveau, was printed in either Amsterdam or Paris in 1692. It depicts California as an island and and represents six, rather than five, Great...
Equal time for Democratic Poker Party
Both the Republican Poker Party “Grand Ol’ Gang” and Democratic Poker Party “True Blues” are reproductions from paintings by Andy Thomas. Mr. Thomas does Civil War, Oil Well and Western Prints. There is a local art gallery in town, “The Galloping Goose” that has...
Blue Orange?
(Cross posted from Epic Journey) Orange County, birthplace of Richard Nixon, may be on the cusp of political upheaval. In the Orange County Register, Dena Bunis reports: Orange County Democrats have become so emboldened by how well President Barack Obama did here on...
This Time Abe, FDR, And JFK Can’t Help
During recent remarks to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, President Barack Obama waxed a bit defensive in response to mounting criticism that he may be spreading himself, his vision, and his obvious political capital too thin in these early days of his...
Jonathan Aitken To Revisit RN
One thing that becomes apparent if one's followed the world of books for a while is that when the anniversary of a famed personality's birth (or sometimes death) comes up, there are likely to be one or more volumes to mark the occasion. In the world of literature,...
The Freeman Fracas
When President Obama, during his period of transition, announced that he was appointing onetime Nixon White House aide Leon Panetta to head the CIA, the former Clinton chief of staff's appointment, after a few initial stirrings of dissatisfaction, sailed through the...
“I’ve Really Come To Understand Him”
On March 12, the touring production of Peter Morgan's play Frost/Nixon with Alan Cox and Stacy Keach in the title roles opens at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, and this weekend Keach talked about the experience of portraying RN with the Orange County Register's...
The Chance That Ted Missed
Eleanor Clift, in a Newsweek article on Sen. Ted Kennedy's effort to get a comprehensive health-insurance program through Congress, reminds readers that he once had a chance to help reach that goal but let it slip through his hands in the name of political...