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ABC is becoming the Network of Weeping. On Sunday nights, the juggernaut show is Extreme Makeover, with Ty Pennington, who can draw raw emotions out of anything, including a trip to Sears. Then each of the craftsmen and designers gets a chance to wring tears out of the audience. Then […]
Falkenberg, Sweden — A Swedish school library is refusing to lend books to pupils if their underwear is showing. Pupils of Tullbro School in Falkenberg do not have to wear a uniform but librarians are clamping down on some teenage fashions. Students who wear hipsters which show off their underwear […]
Home at lunchtime baking lemon poppy and pumpkin bread, I usually turn on the television down in the basement. Today it was Modern Marvels…about UFOs. But what got my attention was this clever ad for the new Honda Ridgeline truck. Therein, the silver girl on the mudflaps slinks her way […]
At the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the execs are up in arms about what happened after they tried making the employees pay for the newspaper. Below is part of a letter to them: “There has been one unfortunate and unacceptable byproduct of the switch – employees are stealing print copies from […]
America’s leading newspapers yesterday helped Tiger Woods evade controversy by ignoring his use of the word `spaz’ to describe his poor putting in the final round of the Masters at Augusta,” Lewine Mair wrote in the Telegraph. “The LA Times, changed the word to ‘wreck’ while The New York Times, […]
Rolling Stone published a long interview with Keifer Sutherland, star of the show 24. “As a kid he was tossed about some. One minute he’s being born in England, his extravagant dad setting him up in life with the extravagant name of Kiefer William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland, the […]
The New Republic writes on the love affair between big media and the super rich. The story began with a report on the NY Times Shopping Writer Alex Kuczynski’s new $5000 shearling coat, and how ‘glad she was that she had already paid her credit card bills.” The writer couldn’t […]
“Do you have what it takes to be a 21st century pioneer?” I read about Northwest North Dakota in Sunday’s Times. Here is how the website prairieopportunities.com entices urbanites to flee to their northern paradise. “Most don’t”. NW North Dakota has openings for 5,000 people to live under clear skies, […]
George Schrieber came to lunch with Cathie and Robbie, our neighbors in Holyoke. George is one of my father’s oldest friends. They met in the early ’50s and married in the same year 1953, in New York City. George is a hale and hearty 87 now, and he moved four […]
Today’s NY Times Magazine was rich with fascinating nuggets. First was a profile of a Korean filmmaker named Park Chanwook who has made superviolent yet intriguing movies that mostly have to do with vengence. In one film, a man whose daughter is kidnapped takes brutal revenge on the captured kidnapper. […]
Chip Ainsworth wrote for the Valley Advocate back in the ’80s, when I worked there in paste-up. He covered sports, and now he’s made a comeback of sorts; every Saturday his column runs in the Recorder. He is a talented wordsmith, I loved this opener about the Red Sox this […]
NASCAR said Wednesday it was “outrageous” that “Dateline NBC” targeted one of its race tracks last weekend for a possible segment on anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States. NASCAR said NBC confirmed it was sending Muslim-looking men to a race, along with a camera crew to film fans’ reactions. The […]