That shame came to NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams only recently is probably the most surprising news of all. He is the ultimate expression of the celebrity newsperson, overpaid, overdressed, overexposed, over-inclined to be an entertainer all the while asserting a claim to be a top notch reporter. As the NY Times' Maureen Dowd wrote, "THIS was a bomb that had …
Category: Media
Deflate-gate calls for willing suspension of disbelief
To enjoy the performance at the movies and in theater, audience members often have to suspend their connection with reality. So, too, with another form of entertainment, professional football. Is it really possible that Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, legendary masters of detail and planned execution, knew absolutely nothing about the under-inflation of footballs? Remember Captain …
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Walsh bows to Boston workers gag order
If you're one of Boston's 18,000 municipal employees, you just lost some important First Amendment rights. If your paycheck says your employer is the City of Boston, your boss, Mayor Marty Walsh, has contractually barred you from saying anything negative about the prospect of hosting the Olympics in 2024. Section 2.05 of the Joinder …
Rise up, ye garden party skunks
Driving down the Mass Pike the day after Boston was tapped for the 2024 U.S. summer Olympics bid, there on the WGBH electronic billboard, the five Olympic rings logo against our beautiful skyline. A frisson of excitement. Wow; it's coming here! Congratulations to the bidding group. And in a split second, I wondered what (and who) …
Mourning Paris journalists and attack on press freedom
If I were technologically proficient, I'd edge this blog in black. How profoundly sad is the grievous slaughter of 12 yesterday in Paris, journalists and their police protectors at the satire magazine Charlie Hebdo. What an unspeakable attack on press freedom and the underpinnings of democracy. What a barbaric assault on humanity! Say what you want …
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‘T’is the season to see movies
I'm not Gene Siskel, Roger Ebert, or Joyce Kulhawik, and I don't pretend to be. But this is a heavy season for movie going, with the industry trying to distribute its best in anticipation of the next round of Oscars. My husband, sister and I have joined the legions of those willing to suspend video renting, plunk …
Sizing up Deval Patrick’s legacy
I confess to being seduced by Governor Deval Patrick. Not literally, of course, but almost always being won over by his charm. It happened the very first time I met him at a house party, nine years ago, when he promised to use the power of the state to reduce property taxes. That didn't quite work …
Mark Wahlberg, meet Nam Phan
Mark Wahlberg, star of box office hits Boogie Nights, The Perfect Storm, The Departed, Lone Surivor and more, and executive producer of Entourage and Boardwalk Empire, was one vicious dude in his teens. His rap sheet from the 1980's reads like a series of scripts from brother Donnie's NYPD series Blue Bloods. Of particular relevance today …
Righting the wrongs of Ferguson
Michael Brown is dead. Darren Wilson's career as a police officer is over. What remains are doubts that, absent a trial, we'll ever know the truth about Ferguson, and the certainty that this nation's racial divide in this country is as unremitting as ever. So what to make of the disappointing grand jury decision not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren …
Cosby revelations disgusting
It's as if we learned that Mr. Rogers was a pedophile, or Marcus Welby had sexually assaulted patients in his exam room. This week we learned that Bill Cosby, the apogee of middle class respectability both in character (as Cliff Huxtable on The Cosby Show) and in person (universally honored, including locally a few years ago by …
Marjorie Arons-Barron 