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Newest Blog Entries:
NYT Books in Review: “A Freewheelin’ Time,” “Farm Friends,” “Hot, Flat and Crowded”
Dylan's old girlfriend reminisces; a former commune member checks in on his old mates; and Tom Friedman's newest is a clarion call for renewable energy.Posted by Ian Alterman, Sunday, September 7, 2008
NYT (2): Art & Politics
Two extremely different exhibitions: at NYC's Asia Society, a look back at the art of pre-capitalist China; and at Philly's Institution of Contemporary Art, an homage to R. Crumb.Posted by Ian Alterman, Friday, September 5, 2008
NYT Book in Review: “Waiting For an Ordinary Day”
“The genie of terrorism, chaos and mayhem has been unleashed onto this country as a result of American mistakes, and it can’t be put back into a bottle.” Wall Street Journal reporter Farnaz Fassihi reports.Posted by Ian Alterman, Tuesday, September 2, 2008
NYT Books in Review: “The Same Man,” “Freedom’s Battle,” “The Way We’ll Be,” “Sex in Crisis,” “Blue Dixie”
A look at George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh; a history of humanitarian intervention; Zogby predicts the future; sex, religion and politics; a very different "Southern strategy"; and an essay on how censorship may have helped shape Solzhenitsyn's prose.Posted by Ian Alterman, Sunday, August 31, 2008
NYT Book in Review: “The Way of the World”
"Weapons of mass destruction and other imaginative acts."Posted by Ian Alterman, Wednesday, August 27, 2008
NYT Books in Review: “A Path Out of the Desert,” “Falun Gong and the Future of China,” “Invisible Nation,” “Spaced Out”
"A grand strategy for America in the Middle East"; why the Chinese reacted so violently to an "exercise society"; the history - and future - of the Kurds; and "a trippy, nostalgic homage to the counterculture era."Posted by Ian Alterman, Sunday, August 24, 2008
Album reaches #4 on Billboard in first week
Over 40 Olympic athletes in Beijing download Tibet solidarity album 'Songs for Tibet'Posted by Barbara DiSalvia, Wednesday, August 20, 2008
NYT Books in Review: “The Wrecking Crew,” “Snow Falling in Spring,” “The Terminal Spy”
"Greedy" conservatives; a memoir of growing up under Mao; and the first case of nuclear terrorism.Posted by Ian Alterman, Sunday, August 17, 2008
AlterNet: Unfit for Publication: Swiftboater Book ‘The Obama Nation’ Filled with Falsehoods
Posted by Michael Butler, Friday, August 15, 2008NYT Book in Review: “Pharmakon”
"One pill makes you happy, and one pill makes you mad." The story of psychopharmacologist J.R. Wittenborn and the early use of psychotropics in research.Posted by Ian Alterman, Thursday, August 14, 2008
NYT Book in Review: “The Liberal Hour”
"Washington and the Politics of Change in the 1960s."Posted by Ian Alterman, Wednesday, August 13, 2008
NYT Book in Review: “The Terminal Spy”
"The First Act of Nuclear Terrorism and the New Cold War." The Litvinenko case, in which a Russian spy was poisoned with nuclear material.Posted by Ian Alterman, Tuesday, August 12, 2008
NYT Book in Review: “The Way We’ll Be”
"The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream...a pollster sees tectonic shifts in American attitudes."Posted by Ian Alterman, Monday, August 11, 2008
NYT Books in Review: “This Land Is Their Land,” “The Challenge,” “Descent Into Chaos,” “Kingmakers,” “My Guantanamo Diary”
Ehrenreich on "economic casualties"; how a "nobody" "forced the administration to try accused terrorists"; U.S. failure in nation-building in Central Asia; Western imperialism in Arab lands; and some of the Guantanamo detainees speak out through an interpreter.Posted by Ian Alterman, Sunday, August 10, 2008
NYT: Let the Sunshine In, and the Shadows
"It is deep summer in the late 1960s in Central Park, and nobody is keeping off the grass. A heady concentration of anarchic youth has come out to play, flooding the shaggy green patch of turf that has been made of the stage at the open-air Delacorte Theater. And the whiff of hedonism that this crowd emanates induces a serious contact high in anyone who comes near it. The pure hormonal vitality that courses through the Public Theater’s exuberant production of “Hair,” which officially opened Thursday night, is enough to make it the pick-me-up event of New York’s dog days this year. But middle-aged audience members who revisit this landmark work from 1967 in search of the feckless flower children they once were are likely to uncover more than they bargained for."Posted by Ian Alterman, Friday, August 8, 2008
NYT: ‘Hair’ Revival: A Time Warp for Tears and Fun
New "Hair"" production is "shockingly relevant."Posted by Ian Alterman, Tuesday, August 5, 2008
NYT Books in Review: “The Dark Side,” “Iron Fists,” “Bad Money,” “America Between the Wars”
"How the war on terror turned into a war on American ideals"; the propaganda machines of Hitler, Mussolini, Lenin, Stalin and Mao; the "global crisis of American capitalism"; and "the misunderstood years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the start of the War on Terror."Posted by Ian Alterman, Sunday, August 3, 2008
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
I am beholden to Annette and Richard Caleel for sending me this book. They know how concerned I have been over this problem. Since 1958, that is 50 years ago, I reported to Sen. John F. Kennedy on the Middle East. I advised Jack that the Israel / Palestine problem was the ground for WWIII. MBPosted by Michael Butler, Wednesday, July 30, 2008
NYT Books in Review: “Buying In,” “Moral Clarity,” “Say You’re One of Them,” “The End of Food”
Think you're impervious to advertising? Think again; a book for "grown-up idealists"; African miseries and why they continue; and the author of "The End of Oil" takes on the food crisis.Posted by Ian Alterman, Sunday, July 27, 2008
NYT Book in Review: “This Land Is Their Land” (Ehrenreich)
"The best of the pieces in this book about unequal opportunity in America are something quite different from journalism. They are small absurdist gems."Posted by Ian Alterman, Friday, July 25, 2008
NYT Book in Review: “The Dark Side”
"The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals." From everything I've heard, this is the must-read book of the season.Posted by Ian Alterman, Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Marching Toward Hell - ICH [Book Review]
Michael Scheuer has written "Marching Toward Hell". It is well worth reading for content and notes. It ranges over a large range of subjects pertinent to our present situation.Covered are Israeli firsters, our elites lack of knowledge with their ignorance of current situations outside America. Our discrediting Hamas, chosen democratically in an election sponsored-in fact demanded-by our government. Not paying attention to the ominous portents of the 1973 oil embargo. Bin Laden policies not hating the west but hating what the west had done in the Islamic world. Moslems don't want our system. They have seen plenty of flaws which do not adhere to their wishes. This is a hard-ass book which is clear as to where we are at. Worth a read. MBPosted by Michael Butler, Sunday, July 20, 2008
NYT Book in Review: “Heavy Metal Islam”
"The Islamic world has a surprisingly active heavy metal subculture."Posted by Ian Alterman, Sunday, July 20, 2008
