If you’re not in the journalism world or from New York City you’ve probably never heard of him. But at the intersection of those two worlds, Peter Kaplan, was revered by many as something like a minor deity. He was the longtime editor of The New York Observer. And his style and the people he mentored have had a influence in contemporary media way out of proportion to the Observer’s pretty small circulation.
Here’s his obit in the Times. And here’s a lengthier piece on who he was and what he did from last year in The New Republic.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, says the Church has been “outmarketed” on gay marriage and sees legalization as essentially a fait accompli.
Florida Tea Party chief says the Florida GOP is being taken over by the “gay thugs.”
It’s a Holiday ritual, fights, stampedes, assaults erupting from the desperate, antic, mad dash for holiday savings on Black Friday. Depending on your point of view it’s sad, ridiculous, hilarious, occasionally tragic. But in culturo-literary terms I’ve come to see it as a sort of running of the bulls of Late Capitalism. So with that peroration, here’s our list of videos of some of the choicest confrontations so far.
Have more examples? Send them in and we’ll add them.
Inside the new arms race between techies and the NSA.
Kanye West says Obama’s having trouble because he’s not as well connected as Jews.
Perhaps it had to fall to Noam Chomsky of all people to deliver the ultimate smackdown to 9/11 Truthers.
“There happen to be a lot of people around who spent an hour on the Internet and think they know a lot of physics. But it doesn’t work like that … There’s a reason there are graduate schools in these departments.”
Video after the jump …
Not only did the Mayor of Hampton get clipped for dealing Oxycodone, he’s also got a lengthy rap sheet.
Florida Sheriff says “this isn’t Toronto” as he arrests Mayor for dealing oxycodone.
For years, Obamacare supporters weathered at best tepid support for the President’s reform in the expectation that once people experienced the actual law, rather than the right-wing fever dream, opinions would change. Then they were hit with the wholly unexpected surprise of a botched website roll out that set the whole public opinion war back on its heels and then a wave of cancellations that were reported in a misleading way (and only affected a tiny portion of the population) but nevertheless further soured public opinion.
But for all that, here’s why I think the generally cataclysmic press is overblown and why the law will be a success.