I'm with Karl Rove, at least on this: Condoleezza Rice should replace Roger Goodell as head of the National Football League. Goodell has been a toady for the owners, who get fat profits from leaving the game just where it is. Despite lip service to the contrary, they have accepted barbaric behavior from the players …
Category: Culture
Andris Nelsons brings new electricity to Boston Symphony
Who would have thought that so much of Boston would be abuzz about the new music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra? The arrival of director (designate until September) Andris Nelsons at the BSO's Tanglewood Music Center (TMC), the world's leading summer classical musical festival, in Lenox, MA this past weekend has generated enough electricity to …
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Books to escape from Benghazi, Boko Haram, Boehner, biz cycle etc, pt. 2
For real escape through summer reading, there's no substitute for fiction. Here are a few books worth sharing. My top read this past year was The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. A 13-year-old boy in Manhattan survives a terrorist bomb in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His mother is killed. They had been visiting her favorite painting, a goldfinch …
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Books to escape from Benghazi, Boko Haram, Boehner, biz cycle etc, pt. 1
Every summer I offer up some of the books I've read in the past year and happily invite readers' recommendations to me. I'm always on the prowl for a good read. This summer's book review will be in two parts. First, the non-fiction. If you're looking for light summer reading, do not try to read …
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Ann Coulter on soccer: a real head case
Ann Coulter must have been hit on the head by a soccer ball, and it was no planned header. Her recent column , a screed against the sport and America's growing interest in it, seems unhinged. She asserts that this is a sign of our nation's moral decay, that the only reason we are interested …
Smart People, smart play
Smart People, Lydia Diamond's new play at the Huntington Theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts, is a smart, funny, profound and highly polished play that I don't hesitate to recommend. Diamond, whose award-winning play Stick Fly played at the Huntington four years ago before going on to Broadway, writes a lot about race and …
Senator Whoever: a candidate for The Daily Show!
I haven't written much about Citizens United and the lethal impact that infamous Supreme Court decision has had on our already tainted political process. Nothing I could have written would have driven the point home as colorfully as this music video by Los Angeles-based music writer, singer and producer Eric Schwartz. Please take a few minutes …
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Red Sox: last to first to worst
A ten-game losing streak. The worst in decades. A string of injuries as long as your sore arm. Still, it's too soon to panic. At least, that's what I keep telling myself. We’re still weeks away from my All Star game marker, when I traditionally worry when the Red Sox record is too good, setting us up …
Marathon musings: who is a hero?
Don't read this if you're tired of the non-stop coverage of the Marathon bombing. Don't read it if you're not touched in some way by the tragedy that befell individual runners and bystanders or disturbed by the assault on our community. Have there been efforts to capitalize on the grief and memorialization of the event? The profit …
Shame on Brandeis
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is, indeed, a controversial figure, especially for the vehemence with which she has criticized Islamic fundamentalism. Just read her memoir Infidel, and you'll understand why. Her childhood was spent in Somalia, Saudi Arabia and Kenya, where she survived genital mutilation, physical and emotional abuse, parental attempts at forced marriage and all the forms …
Marjorie Arons-Barron 