Editorials
525 results
Page 47
Sport and theater: Vive la difference
Sport is sport, and theater is theater, and never the twain should meet
Jim Rutter suggests that theater companies could boost their audiences as well as their relevance by integrating sport and drama. As Samuel Goldwyn famously put it, include me out.
Editorials
3 minute read
Obama's Nobel
A few words about prizes, Obama's Nobel and the ‘death' of decadent old Europe
Did Obama deserve his Nobel Prize? The more germane question, it seems to me, is: Why do we place such value on prizes, which after all are only popularity contests? Especially when something genuinely revolutionary is taking place in supposedly “decadent” Europe.
Editorials
5 minute read
Modern dance: The agony and the agony
Is anybody happy?
Miscellaneous ruminations about the angst of modern dancers, the coyness of Inquirer film critic Carrie Rickey, and the convolutions of architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable.
Editorials
3 minute read
Bill Sommerfield: Washington's alter ego
The man who thought he was George Washington
The impresarios Bill and Pam Sommerfield developed a new theatrical niche: Their performers weren't merely historical actors; they were self-taught scholars who researched their characters so thoroughly that they became those characters. In the process they inspired future generations of Americans to pay more attention to the past, if only for the sheer fun of it.
Editorials
5 minute read
Yet another police racial scandal
Worse than the Gates arrest: Another police racial scandal comes to light
If an esteemed black Harvard professor like Henry Louis Gates Jr. can be arrested for breaking into his own home, is any black American safe from police abuse? Apparently not, as a newly uncovered racial outrage in Washington, D.C., amply demonstrates.
Editorials
3 minute read
What Sotomayor should have said
Latina liberal unbound: What Sotomayor should have said
The New York Times and many liberals wish Sonia Sotomayor had spoken out more forcefully at the Senate hearings on her nomination to the Supreme Court. But how does a nominee speak out forthrightly without jeopardizing her nomination? Perhaps I can offer some guidance.
Editorials
5 minute read
When writers collide
Doctors and patients, or: On listening to youth
If my purpose in editing BSR is to educate myself, why am I turning for my musical education to a 20-something whippersnapper like Beeri Moalem when I could surround myself exclusively with elder sages who possess multiple degrees and years of life experience to boot?
Editorials
3 minute read
The 'Inquirer' and John Yoo
'They hire each other': The Inquirer and John Yoo
The Inquirer says it needed to add a right-wing columnist “to counter criticism that our editorials and columns always lean left.” Benito Mussolini wasn't available. So whom else to hire but John Yoo, author of the Bush administration's torture memos?
Editorials
6 minute read
Campaign slogans for Arlen Specter
The old man and the puddle: Campaign slogans for Arlen Specter
In the evening of his life, Arlen Specter has boldly cut himself adrift from his moorings. Is this not a parable worthy of Hemingway or Shakespeare? Who will provide Specter with the rhetorical ballast he'll surely need when he seeks re-election next year? I volunteer.
Editorials
3 minute read
Further thoughts on "American Buffalo'
In search of Mamet's meaning (continued)
Some critics contend that David Mamet's American Buffalo is above all a play about friendship and community. But what sort of community, exactly, are we talking about?
Editorials
3 minute read