A Stone Carver’s Daughter Tells Of Mount Rushmore
On Halloween 70 years ago, an iconic American monument was completed — Mount Rushmore. It took 14 years of blasting and chiseling granite to finish the work. And chief stone carver Luigi Del Bianco, an Italian immigrant, was there for most of them. Del Bianco was responsible for many of the finer details in Lincoln’s [...]
‘Anonymous’: Stylish Claptrap, By Any Other Name
Did Shakespeare write Shakespeare? That is the question — at least according to Roland Emmerich’s new movie Anonymous. Personally, I went in a skeptic of the Oxfordian position, which posits that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, wrote the plays and poems generally attributed to Shakespeare. But I have to concede that Anonymous raises [...]
‘Time’ Bandits: Timberlake, Seyfried Clock Some Sci-Fi
Featuring more running than an entire season of Doctor Who, Andrew Niccol’s In Time is a supremely silly lovers-on-the-lam caper all tarted up with a dash of sci-fi seriousness. And that’s the problem: Unable to wink at the daftness of his own screenplay — and perhaps inject some screwball fizz into the proceedings — Niccol [...]
‘Janie Jones’: Family Harmony Takes Practice
The Clash’s “Janie Jones” describes a character with a handful of loves — rock ‘n’ roll, getting stoned, and a woman named Janie Jones — and one dislike: his boring job. In David M. Rosenthal’s film of the same title, Alessandro Nivola plays Ethan, a declining 30-something rock star who’s a boozer, not a stoner. [...]
‘Rum Diary’: Drinks And Deadlines, In The Tropics
Noteworthy for what must be the least psychedelic acid-trip scene ever filmed, The Rum Diary struggles to seem both authentic and outrageous. The movie is Johnny Depp’s latest tribute to his friend and inspiration, journalist Hunter S. Thompson, and should interest members of either man’s cult. Everyone else will be wondering how “gonzo” could be [...]
Hormones And Metabolism Conspire Against Dieters
There are some fresh insights from Australia that help explain why it’s so difficult for dieters to keep off the weight they lose. Willpower will only take you so far, in case you haven’t run that experiment yourself. Turns out our bodies have a fuel gauge, not entirely unlike the gas gauge on our cars, [...]
‘Fast And Slow’: Pondering The Speed Of Thought
In 2002, Daniel Kahneman won a Nobel Prize in economics — but he isn’t an economist. Kahneman’s field is the psychology of decision-making, and that’s the topic of his new book, Thinking, Fast and Slow. Kahneman tells NPR’s Robert Siegel about the two systems that make up what he calls “the machinery of the mind:” [...]
New DUI Law Takes Effect Next Week
A new stricter DUI law named after an OSU student killed by a repeat drunk driver goes into effect November First.
More Corporations Shed Light On Political Spending
For the first time, 100 of America’s biggest corporations are being rated on the transparency of their political activities. On Friday, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the nonpartisan Center for Political Accountability will release an index that ranks the S&P 100 companies. The rankings come as politicians employ new loopholes — [...]
Muslim Activist Challenges Fla. Republican’s Views
There’s no member of the Republican freshman class in Congress more outspoken than Florida Rep. Allen West. Since he was elected last year, West has become a strong voice on Capitol Hill for fiscal restraint, socially conservative values — and responding to the threat posed by Islamic extremists. On the topic of Islam, West has [...]
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