Archive for September 2009

The Polanski Arrest

            This effort to try to extradite Roman Polanski seems like a bad idea.  However bad what the Polanski of 1977 did may be, you cannot punish him.  He no longer exists,  worn away by half a lifetime of subsequent experiences and choices.  Moreover, at least one of the traditional reasons for imprisoning people, to […]

Picking Up the Flag

It is tempting to view the stories told in [Eric] Boehlert’s two books, one chronicling the failure of the mainstream media to report the news and the other revealing the success of the blogs in doing so, as being parts of the same story. Maybe the mainstream media would not be failing from a business perspective were they not, most of the time, failing from a news-reporting perspective as well. Maybe the blogs would not be succeeding, albeit under their mostly profit-agnostic criteria, were they not beginning to seize the standard of bona fide reporting falling from the grasp of the mainstream media as they tumble lifeless upon the field of economic battle.