tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89589212011-12-22T21:46:34.623-05:00Observations from one small, slow corner of a quickly spinning planet.Brad Rickmannoreply@blogger.comBlogger181100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8958921.post-1154763751311986032006-08-05T03:25:00.000-04:002006-08-11T11:31:55.960-04:00

The Devil Wears Prada is the kind of film listed in critical dictionaries under the heading amusing romp. Filtering classic ingenue-comes-to-big-city-to-make-it-big tales through the fine-mesh silk of the fashion business, it follows starry-eyed Andrea (Anne Hathaway) from the street to the suite, and simultaneously from breathless post-collegiate smugness to Faustian cynicism to, at last, a

B Rickmannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8958921.post-1138036588276759992006-01-23T12:09:00.000-05:002006-01-23T18:07:42.386-05:00

In case you hadn't received the memo announcing the organization of your entire life, public and private, to serve the needs of giant corporations, here's a brief update from Saturday's New York Times. Apparently ABC filmed an entire reality series, then killed it because it interfered with the target marketing of a movie launch. Thus the life of the so-called mind in the post-millennial

B Rickmannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8958921.post-1122751792839661282005-07-30T15:22:00.000-04:002005-07-30T15:30:41.990-04:00

NYC: no place on earth so governed by paradox. Every cliché holds true and falls bankrupt; it is the best of all possible worlds, and certainly also the worst. It sprints at the future but is hopelessly mired in the most antiquated thinking west of Rome. It is sleek and modern and clean; it is run-down, ruggedly beat up, beautiful only when the lights are out and no one's home. Beautiful: it can

B Rickmannoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8958921.post-1118534792351350862005-06-11T19:40:00.000-04:002005-06-13T13:44:36.806-04:00

A Thanksgiving story for you, as we verge on July. While visiting a friend's house for a group cook-a-thon last November 25, I sliced my finger. It was the index finger of my left hand. The offending instrument was a serrated bread knife in outstanding condition, long and mean. Not uncommon: get a group together, open wine, start cutting; eventually blood will be spilled. In this case the blood

B Rickmannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8958921.post-1118321291914046872005-06-09T08:34:00.000-04:002005-06-09T08:48:11.933-04:00

If you are, like me, one of those people who've assumed that the spasms of fervor rolling out of Christian corners since last November are nothing more than the latest media darling, the socio-political equivalent of Britney's navel or J-Lo's ass, you may want to reconsider. Yes, these folks have certainly been getting coverage disproportionate to their numbers, to their representativeness in

B Rickmannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8958921.post-1102206169543782542004-12-04T19:22:00.000-05:002004-12-10T14:58:27.596-05:00

For those still following, Louis Menand's article in the December 6 New Yorker debunks the myth of the "moral values" tsunami we've been told washed over us on November 2. No less an authority than Jan Van Lohuizen, one of the Bush campaign's own pollsters, is quoted as having declared "'I've seen no data that, in the composition of the electorate, the religious voter was more heavily represented

B Rickmannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8958921.post-1100843778715652952004-11-19T01:50:00.001-05:002004-11-19T07:23:22.780-05:00

I hate to be doing this. Really, I do. One of the major gripes I've always had with the American left — of which, philosophically, I consider myself a member — is its tendency toward self-flagellation. It can seem like (and maybe is) the pitiful legacy of voguish socialism: enormous energy spent correcting the ideological "errors" of one's allies, precious little on countering the enemy. However.

B Rickmannoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8958921.post-1100843386147000552004-11-19T01:48:00.000-05:002004-11-19T00:49:46.146-05:00

A friend sent the following link for my perusal: http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1103-28.htm To which I respond: Rah. Maybe I'm in the minority (even within the minority), but I'm finding sophomoric pep talks like these nearly as demoralizing as Condi Rice's appointment or Gonzales's nomination. They suggest nothing so much as that that the so-called loyal opposition will continue to have

B Rickmannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8958921.post-1100526593821061772004-11-15T08:47:00.000-05:002004-11-15T08:55:07.893-05:00

Snippets from responses to Kristof's column last week regarding intimidation of the press: "So sorry, but they SHOULD be locked up . There is no guarantee of protection for 'sources'. Unfortunately, journalists have proven themselves to be every bit as deceiving and manipulating as anyone else. The old days of trusting you folks is over. Is there really a source? Did the reporter actually report

B Rickmannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8958921.post-1099957301445302682004-11-08T18:38:00.000-05:002004-11-09T00:10:16.756-05:00

Not surprisingly, and in keeping with their conduct prior to the election, the administration since has made claims wholly unsupported by actual evidence from planet Earth. Some of the most egregious of these claims involve the so-called mandate given them by voters, and size of same. It's, uh, big, they say. Really big. In fact the biggest. Like Iraq's weapons of mass destruction; like the

B Rickmannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8958921.post-1099952933508922652004-11-08T17:28:00.000-05:002004-11-08T17:31:20.756-05:00

Post-election pronouncements have been little short of apocalyptic on both sides, but the smug assurance of right-wingers is overwhelming given the 51/48% vote tally (it's a smugness reinforced, admittedly, by self-flagellation and extravagant mourning on the left). Democrats are being treated to all sorts of fine lectures about how to court suburban voters, how to court southern voters, how to

B Rickmannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8958921.post-1099777637249577352004-11-06T16:39:00.000-05:002004-11-06T16:51:47.210-05:00

An email sent to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof in reponse to his most recent column ("Time to Get Religion," November 6): Mr Kristof: Have to disagree with you, both on principle and pragmatically. If the Dems follow your advice, what would be the point of having a second party at all? The philosophy you outline has already been embraced by moderate Republicans. (Can you say Arnold

B Rickmannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8958921.post-1099674958598984862004-11-05T13:13:00.000-05:002004-11-06T14:38:30.970-05:00

And so now Kerry has delivered his concession speech, Bush has laid claim. I've received my thank you notes from the Kerry campaign and from MoveOn.org: consolatory returns on my first-ever campaign contributions. They all insist it's not over. We'll fight on, they insist; it was an excellent start. Perhaps. But today I am of other minds. Something, certainly, is over. And is there something else

B Rickmannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8958921.post-1099454398696826392004-11-02T22:57:00.000-05:002004-11-02T22:59:58.696-05:00

Reports again of trouble in southern Florida, prompting hard thoughts of a potential firesale of the entire state to Cuba. Think of it more along the lines of a merger; the terms could be simple: Castro steps down. They'd get millions of relatively prosperous lost sons, prime real estate, lucrative theme parks, and an aging but by and large wealthy bunch of white folks that our health care system

B Rickmannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8958921.post-1099454185216027682004-11-02T21:10:00.000-05:002004-11-02T23:02:42.570-05:00

So far the only good news is that Nader is polling under 1%. Once upon a time I would have hated to see myself write a thing like that; but then months ago I heard Ralph responding to The Nation's open letter asking him — asking him, you understand: it was a plea, a grovel, really, among old friends, signed by the entire editorial board (read it here) — and it dawned on me that he'd truly

B Rickmannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8958921.post-1099403727381947182004-11-02T08:54:00.000-05:002004-11-08T18:48:27.550-05:00

I climb out of the subway at Broadway and Wall Street, just in front of Trinity Church, down-Downtown, sacred ground in Manhattan in more ways than one. It is a shudder-inducing place to visit, not least because it is beautiful, lined by Federal grandeur and chilled by short water-winds that prowl up the canyon from the thin island's tip. Money always gets the best address — money and lawyers, of

B Rickmannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8958921.post-1099315764120082772004-11-01T08:23:00.000-05:002004-11-06T01:15:21.300-05:00

If you are an American citizen, here, today, is where you stand. Your nation may be on the verge of reelecting one of the most divisive, corrupt, and incompetent administrations in its modern history. Your fellow citizens are fragmented, split — irreconcilably, perhaps — between those who see a mythically grand new dawn approaching and those who are so cynical, so depressed, so alienated from

B Rickmannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8958921.post-1099369286366751842004-08-02T21:52:00.000-04:002004-11-01T23:21:26.366-05:00

Some people say they’ll be stopping every train heading into Penn Station — every train, northbound and south-, from Connecticut or New Jersey, Long Island, whatnot. Others guess they’ll stop trains randomly — that, oh, sure, they’re saying they’ll stop them all: but they won’t, of course they won’t, they never could. They just want to scare them. Them? The bad guys. Terrorists. Right? Other

B Rickmannoreply@blogger.com0