Lady Gaga Vs. Ladytron

May 2, 2009

Why is one pop diva du jour and one not? They are both female-fronted, synth-powered throwbacks, stealing gleefully from the 80s. (Kraftwerk will never die.) New Yorker music critic Sasha Frere Jones just wrote a column arguing for Lady Gaga’s significance as a one-hit (or two-hit) wonder: “She cites Andy Warhol… opines in public about whether a certain shade of red is ‘Communist,’ and has dropped Rilke’s name more than once.” Her monster hit is the naughty “Poker Face.”

The difference is, while Lady Gaga is Read More

The Oligarchy: Who’s Most to Blame for Financial Collapse?

May 2, 2009

…Look at who most benefitted from it. That’s the well-supported argument of former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Simon Johnson in the new Atlantic. In particular, look at the power-elite bankers and hedge funds – the oligarchy – who still run the show in D.C. and Wall Street.

“The oligarchy and the government policies that aided it did not alone cause the financial crisis that exploded last year. Many other factors contributed, including excessive Read More

Los Angeles Dodgers Are Missing the Beat

May 1, 2009

The flailing publishing industry is throwing some nasty curveballs. And it’s no longer just niche magazines and peripheral newsrooms staff being affected by cutbacks and budget shortfalls. As The Wall Street Journal discussed in April, sports journalists have become the most recent victims of this economic downturn. In a tell-tale sign of the times, the Los Angeles Daily News on April 30 laid off Dodgers beat-writer Tony Jackson, leaving the nation’s second-largest market with just one dedicated baseball reporter. Read More

The Swine Flu is Gone… At Least By Name

May 1, 2009

After nearly a week of uninterrupted public discourse, on April 30 the world quickly waved goodbye to that troublesome Swine Flu outbreak. And on May 1, we met the eerily similar H1N1 virus. No, the virus strain didn’t evolve like the Motaba virus in Dustin Hoffman’s “Outbreak,” the Pork Industry just launched a PR campaign. Read More