During a February press conference in London, where Murray was promoting “The Monuments Men,” he said: “I thought, ‘Well there’s a girl who doesn’t have a whole lot of prospects, but the sun’s coming up anyway and she’s got another chance at it.’ So I think that gave me some sort of feeling that I too am…
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The paucity of reporters has triggered an invisible power shift toward elected officials. A Pew Research Center study of Baltimore showed an increase in local stories based on press releases from elected officials. The trends in journalism exacerbate the divide between the coasts and the rest of the country. In 2014, almost 1 out of 5 U.S. reporters…
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Jane Eyre is not a two-person show, and the smallish cast must take on double duty at least, filling a wide variety of roles in this production. Besides the previously mentioned [Paige] Borak, multipurpose players Jill Keating and Carolyn Jerz must be singled out- Keating takes on three different variations of the “matronly, unpleasant Victorian lady”…
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Rereading “Writing to Learn,” William Zinsser’s 1988 book about helping students overcome the fear of writing. That’s how I remember the book, but it’s also about hacking the act of teaching so that we don’t inadvertently convey the notion that students who make mistakes during the writing are doing something wrong. I spend a lot…
Just in case someone out there could use it, here’s a powerful comic that emphasizes the power of sympathy (written by J. Michael Straczynski, creator of my second favorite TV show). No sunshine and rainbows, no victim-blaming, no finger-pointing — just humane compassion. (Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.) Superman on…
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I made three movies with John Hughes; when they were released, they made enough of a cultural impact to land me on the cover of Time magazine and to get Hughes hailed as a genius. His critical reputation has only grown since he died, in 2009, at the age of fifty-nine. Hughes’s films play constantly on television and are even taught in schools. There is still so much that I love in them, but lately I have felt the need to examine the role that these movies have played in our cultural life: where they came from, and what they might mean now. When my daughter proposed watching “The Breakfast Club” together, I had hesitated, not knowing how she would react: if she would understand the film or if she would even like it. I worried that she would find aspects of it troubling, but I hadn’t anticipated that it would ultimately be most troubling to me. -Molly Ringwald, New Yorker
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“If you find yourself agreeing with everything your news outlet says, you’re doing it wrong. If your news doesn’t challenge you, challenge your news.” CBS News veteran Dan Rather, who knows a thing or two about fake news, offers sound advice for news consumers.
Posting this mostly to prove that I can remain rational even when I encounter criticism of classic Star Trek, which certainly had its silly moments, but which offered many, many serious adult treatments of social issues. If you like your science fiction overlong and overserious, may I recommend Star Trek: The Motion Picture? 2001 is…