The Devil Came on Horseback
When Brian Steidle left the U.S. Marine Corps in 2004, he went to Sudan, to monitor a ceasefire between rebel groups and the government. What he ended up monitoring was ...
Shame and Change
“It has to go either one way or the other,” said Mohammed Naqvi as he described the Pakistani legal system’s treatment of rape: an approach that’s half British common law, ...
Bug House
Watched without preconception, William Friedkin’s Bug would be a flawlessly frantic hour and a half. Living in the end room of a mythically run-down motel eons from anywhere, Agnes (Ashley ...
“Consider… the Ultimate Costs and Consequences of Free News”
It’s hard to disagree with that Internet Age axiom “information wants to be free.” Not because it’s convincing or anything, but just because it sounds so good. Imagine Dennis Hopper in ...
Running with the Devil
NBC released the tapes and photos Cho sent them, and who’s not just a little uncomfortable with their decision? Here’s how they made it: Package Forced NBC to Make Tough ...
Terry Moran is a Journalist, Right?
Yesterday, ABC Reporter Terry Moran posted on his blog that we shouldn’t feel too bad for the wrongly accused Duke lacrosse players because they were louts anyway, and the real ...
Something to Watch
In the beginning, television wasn’t so great. Quality flickered match-like in an endless void. Then in 1999 God said “Let there be Tony Soprano.” And for the first time in ...
Media Hoaxes Aren’t What They Used to Be
Imagine yourself a TV executive. A B-list writer arrives in your office, claims that he and Michael Jackson have collaborated on a script for the King of Pop’s exclusive biographical ...
Air America: Still Kicking, but Learning Anything?
Air America is still around—rescued from bankruptcy by New York real estate mogul Stephen Green, who’s pledged to turn it into a functioning profit machine—but has management learned to view ...
It Takes a Family…
I read Jhumpa Lahiri’s first book, Interpreter of Maladies: a collection of narrative portraits of Indian immigrants to America. Good writing. I consciously avoided her subsequent novel, The Namesake, about ...