"Punch" Sulzberger dies

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Saturday September 29, 2012 · 8:47 AM PDT

2012/09/29 · 08:47

Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, former Publisher of the New York Times, Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, etc. etc., has died.

Some will remember him as the publisher of the Pentagon Papers. Others, myself included, will remember him as the person most responsible for turning New York City from a vibrant cultural capital and social crucible, to a cultural backwater and a tourist destination for the rich and exclusive. La lucha continua.

Yakov's Yom-Kippur Meatballs.

WOIDgang

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Monday September 24, 2012 · 3:23 PM PDT

2012/09/24 · 15:23

My great-grandfather Yakov was one among the Jewish anarchists on New York's Lower East Side. Times were hard and the bosses mean, but there was revolutionary faith, and solidarity, and joy, as when everyone gathered for the Yom-Kippur Ball to celebrate with ham-and-cheese sandwiches and wine.

WOIDgang

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Monday September 03, 2012 · 12:11 PM PDT

2012/09/03 · 12:11

Alexander Saxton, one of the most original progressive historians in America, has died, age 93.

Saxton was the author of The Rise and Fall of the White Republic, a brilliant survey of the role of racism in nineteenth-century politics that still has deep relevance today. (See review.)

A Harvard undergraduate who turned union organizer who turned successful writer then went back for a PhD when his books were blacklisted, Saxton chose to end his own life.

Here is a full obituary.

Who built it?

WOIDgang

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Sunday September 02, 2012 · 6:48 AM PDT

2012/09/02 · 06:48

Happy Labor's Day from Bertolt Brecht and The Orange Press!

WOIDgang

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Friday August 31, 2012 · 12:45 PM PDT

2012/08/31 · 12:45

"Referring all questions on this to Salvador Dali." – Obama Campaign Press Secretary, responding to Clint Eastwood's speech at the Republican Convention, 8/30/2012.

WOIDgang

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Sunday August 26, 2012 · 1:27 PM PDT

2012/08/26 · 13:27

Franz Schubert's generation was not given to political activism; not that there was much opportunity to begin with. His was the time Austrians call Biedermeier or, on occasion, Backhendlzeit, the "Days of Roast Chicken." It was a time much like the late twentieth century in America, a time of smug reaction and happy-face efficiency. Godless French Revolutionary-ism had been defeated once and for all by the fall of Napoleon; anything smelling of youthful passion was suspect; anything that appealed to the subjective was subversive; even Kant was banned from the schools. Criticism was possible only from behind the mask of the Volkisch, the guileless wisdom of the People. Johann Nestroy, the Viennese playwright and writer of lyrics, made a specialty of this. So did Schubert.

WOIDgang

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Sunday August 19, 2012 · 1:26 PM PDT

2012/08/19 · 13:26

Review: Terry Eagleton. Why Marx was Right. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011. (A Giddiyap Society Book Selection.)

Eagleton sets out to justify Marx's ways to Americans and others in the reasonable, chatty, chastely hip tones of the British clerical class, with dry witticisms strewn here and there, though some are good enough to be sound-bites or maybe even bumper-stickers. The book divides into ten chapters, each dealing with a standard liberal accusation about Marxism — not the kind of wack-job nonsense you get from pimple-faces and talking heads, mind you, the kind of reasonably misinformed chatter you'd hear from your colleagues in the Faculty dining room.

WOIDgang

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Friday August 17, 2012 · 8:21 AM PDT

2012/08/17 · 08:21

J. P. Morgan had style. Some art historian once ran to him with information that a Byzantine chalice he'd recently bought was a fake. "Well," snorted Morgan, "find me the man who forged it and order a few more." Morgan's aesthetics and investment strategies were one and the same: when in 1907 some speculators ran to him the information that there was a run on US banks, J.P. poured in his money, good after bad, to restore investor confidence, just as he'd done with the chalice.

Time was, when people trusted banks. Time was, when people trusted museums, which once were saving banks for art and have become investment banks for art. People even trusted art historians, who are the Moody's for Matisse.

WOIDgang

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Friday August 03, 2012 · 12:02 AM PDT

2012/08/03 · 00:02

The snobs are waiting 'til autumn to succumb on schedule to whatever Klimt-fever Mr. Bahr has planned; and in the interval between ecstasies, to show their indifference to the work of excellent artists that fills the spring exhibitions....

continued here.

Gustav Klimt: The Big Kiss-Off

WOIDgang

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Monday July 30, 2012 · 10:17 AM PDT

2012/07/30 · 10:17

REVIEW: 150 Years of Gustav Klimt. July 12, 2012-June 1, 2013. Schloss Belvedere, Vienna, Austria.

WOIDgang

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Tuesday July 17, 2012 · 10:42 AM PDT

2012/07/17 · 10:42

"EU finance regulator, Michel Barnier is standing up to the powerful bank lobby and championing reform that would put bankers behind bars for fraud like [the LIBOR scandal]. If the EU goes first, accountability could quickly spread across the globe. But the banks are lobbying hard against it, and we need a massive surge of people power to drive these reforms through.

If we can get 1 million people to stand with Barnier in the next 3 days, it will give him momentum..."

PS - at last count there were 615,000 signers to the petition. But that was a few minutes ago...

Happy Baudin's Day to you!

WOIDgang

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Saturday December 03, 2011 · 11:58 AM PST

2011/12/03 · 11:58

Today, December 3, we commemorate the anniversary of the death of a great statesman and humanitarian.

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"Punch" Sulzberger dies

Yakov's Yom-Kippur Meatballs.

Alexander Saxton has died.

Who built it?

What Would Dali Do?

Franz Schubert hates Republicans

"Why Marx was Right."

Never trust the teller...

The Big Kiss-Off [II]

Gustav Klimt: The Big Kiss-Off

Bankers behind bars.

Happy Baudin's Day to you!