Video by rhidoyakash California, not the Washington, D.C., area, is where Americans go if they want to flirt with the apocalypse, at least the seismic kind. Man-made disasters here in Northern Virginia? Well, there was 9/11 at the Pentagon several miles from me—Target Zero, of course, during the Cold War. But in Alexandria, we locals […]
Read MoreLeonardo DiCaprio may convert to Judaism: Five reasons for President Obama to do likewise (satire alert)
Groucho Marx once said any club that would admit him wasn’t worth joining. Marx was Jewish, of course, as am I, along with many of the characters in my novel, The Solomon Scandals; and I’m curious if the same logic might be behind rabbis’ traditional reluctance to convert nonJews without sufficient preparation to join our […]
Read MoreKent State Massacre 40 years later: ‘Get set!’ ‘Point!’ ‘Fire!’ orders said to be in enhanced recording
Four Kent State University students—including Bill Schroeder, an ROTC cadet whose funeral I wrote up for the Lorain Journal—died 40 years ago on May 4, 1970. Nine suffered bullet wounds. The Ohio National Guard fired 67 rounds at a crowd no closer than 150 feet. Shot in the back while lying on the grass, young […]
Read MoreGoogle IS killing newspapers—but not in the way you might think
I mourn the decline of traditional newspapers, like The Telegram in The Solomon Scandals, despite their many flaws. How many paper dailies—not just individual copies of them—will end up as trash? And, yes, as many in the industry believe, Google is responsible to a great extent, but not in the way you might think. Google’s […]
Read More‘What Would Google Do’ with my old steeltown newspaper in Lorain, Ohio? Here’s what I’D do.
Related: Media critic James Fallows and Google News’ Josh Cohen will discuss digital-era journalism tomorrow, Wednesday, at 6:30 p.m., in D.C. What if reporters didn’t take over from newspaper publishers, the tease I posted earlier? Suppose someone else did, Google. One old newspaper alum, Jeff Jarvis, has even written a book called What Would Google […]
Read More‘Watchdogs are dozing’ in D.C., say two Politico writers
The Solomon Scandals, begun 30 years ago on an ancient electric typewriter, is partly about unsavory ties between the press, government and business. But in a way it’s also a tribute to the bygone days when daily newspapers—without so much Net-based competition for readers and ads—could more easily splurge on investigative journalism. And now? Here’s […]
Read MoreTwo Chicagoans: President Bullard vis-a-vis Obama
Both are self-made men from Chicago—intellectual politicians with law degrees. And like me, both are on the liberal side. No doubt, a few superficial parallels exist between my fictitious Eddy Bullard and President-elect Barack Obama. And it isn’t even deliberate. Thirty years ago when I conceived The Solomon Scandals, President Bullard held a law degree […]
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