“Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.” So said the French political philosopher, journalist and politician Frédéric Bastiat (1801–50). Now there is a prize named after him, worth $15,000, open to all published writers around the world. But the deadline is just a couple of…
Daily Archives: 27 June 2007
A 24-year-old made finest (media) movie ever
Orson Welles‘ Citizen Kane (original trailer above), a scathing biopic of William Randolph Hearst and made when Welles was a ripe old man of 24, has once again topped the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 best films of all times. And Phil Rosenthal uses the occasion to marvel at how many great movies…
Say hello to the electronic news box
Gender bias: do men write better than women?
YES—Men write better than women: “Male lit is violent, offensive, and crude, but it’s also genuine. Confident, without apology, ready to be humiliated, without the prudish restraint of grace, or the contemporary stink of gender guilt.” NO—Women write better than men: “Women tell it straight. No choice but to be straight when nobody wants to…
Because the only certain thing in life is death
There are television shows on living, cooking, playing, buying, selling. Why not one on dying? That’s precisely the blank in the television schedule that a German company is doing. And soon EosTV will be bringing the grim business of ageing, dying and mourning, live, 24 x 7 x 365. “Most of the programming, however, will…
