Editorials

521 results
Page 39
Anthony Drexel was ignored for a century, but now he's big in China.

How to deal with historical injustice

Who invented the telegraph? Reflections on historical injustice

If someone takes credit that you deserve, how should you respond? With help from a few obscure historical heroes, let me offer some suggestions.
Dan Rottenberg

Dan Rottenberg

Editorials 4 minute read
Angela Renee Simpson as Queenie and Morris Robinson as Joe in 'Show Boat': Gulf between the races.

Of Jets, Sharks, Jews and "Niggers'

Of ‘Jews' and ‘Niggers' (Do I have your attention yet?)

The use of word “Niggers” in the original Show Boat was deemed so harsh that it had to be softened. Ditto now for “Jews” in Bach's St. John Passion. Yet sometimes a slap in the face makes you sit up and pay attention.
Dan Rottenberg

Dan Rottenberg

Editorials 3 minute read
'From my dreams, I would wake screaming.' (Above: 'The Scream,' by Edward Munch.)

The Pulitzer Prize, and other delusions

What the Pulitzer Prize didn't do for Hemingway (or any other writer)

Authors and publishers are distraught because the Pulitzer board declined to bestow an award for “Best Fiction” in 2011. It's bad for their business, surely. But how, exactly, does winning a prize improve anyone's creativity?
Dan Rottenberg

Dan Rottenberg

Editorials 4 minute read
One man remained, blissfuly ignorant of the world after 1912.

Titanic: Death of a fantasy

The Titanic's last survivor (and other childhood fantasies)

Of all my ridiculous fantasies from the ‘50s, the most ludicrous was this: that the sunken hull of the Titanic still harbored a living passenger, and that some day I would meet him.
Dan Rottenberg

Dan Rottenberg

Editorials 6 minute read
Lipson: A 40-year ordeal, and counting.

Edghill v. Philadelphia Magazine, revisited

Legal truth and real truth: The libel suit that refuses to die

When publisher Herb Lipson settled a libel suit for millions and issued a retraction in 1989, he thought he was ending a personal nightmare. But he seems to have been paying a price ever since— not legal or financial, but psychological.
Dan Rottenberg

Dan Rottenberg

Editorials 8 minute read
Jeremy Lin never asked, 'What am I doing here?'

The larger meaning of Jeremy Lin

Jeremy Lin, Joan of Arc and Napoleon: Something in common

Jeremy Lin emerged seemingly out of nowhere this past month to lead basketball's lowly New York Knicks to eight victories in nine games. As with Joan of Arc, Lin reminded us of the limitless possibilities of human achievement, especially when a determined individual functions in the context of a team.
Dan Rottenberg

Dan Rottenberg

Editorials 4 minute read
$1 for Lincoln, $1 for Hitler....

Max Frankel and "equality' in campaign spending

What's worse than big money in politics?

In the name of fairness, Max Frankel wants to equalize political campaign spending. Any Philadelphian could tell him something about the unintended consequences of such a virtuous act.

Editorials 4 minute read
Dinnertime for lions: Doing what comes naturally.

The case against Mother Nature

Mother Nature, clean up your mess!

Are we humans really worse stewards of our planet than Mother Nature herself, left to her own devices? And are clergy really better guides to a worthwhile life than economists?
Dan Rottenberg

Dan Rottenberg

Editorials 5 minute read
A miillon times nothing is....

Inside Janet Malcolm's mind

The sound, the fury and the clutter: The trouble with Janet Malcolm

The veteran New Yorker staff writer Janet Malcolm and I have a great deal in common. Why, then, did I dismiss her recently as “incurably ditzy”? For my money, Malcolm's oeuvre too often represents a triumph of style over substance, and of the clutter of overwhelming research over simple clarity.
Dan Rottenberg

Dan Rottenberg

Editorials 9 minute read
Is this Overbrook's 'most esteemed alumnus'?

The Inquirer (again) and Steve Jobs (again)

A plague of journalists (and professors)

Institutional Alzheimer's strikes again at the Inquirer. An academic Luddite strikes again at the New York Review of Books.
Dan Rottenberg

Dan Rottenberg

Editorials 2 minute read