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Lawrence of Arabia
Watching one of the great films in the history of the art form always fills me both with excitement and trepidation, particularly when the film was made a long time ago. Some films are timeless; others translate very poorly from the past into the present. Gone with the Wind bored the teenage me beyond belief 
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[Read More] The Baader Meinhoff Complex
In 1997, Heinrich Breloer made a spectacular docudrama (a documentary interspersed with acted drama) about the abduction of Hans Martin Schleyer, the head of the West German employer’s union, by the Red Army Fraction, a home-grown terrorist group, formed by Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhoff. The Baader Meinhoff Complex goes all the way to 
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[Read More] Obama nominates a ”‘Kid From the Bronx’ With Hopes and Doubts”
Just like Obama’s own biography, the life of Sonia Sotomayor is an inspirational story. It will be interesting to see how the Republicans will treat her in the nomination hearing.
NEIL A. LEWIS (NY) reports: Sonia Sotomayor, who would be the Supreme Court’s first Hispanic justice, brings to the confirmation experience the kind of rich 
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[Read More] Angels and Demons
The opening scene at the CERN physics laboratory where an experiment to create anti-matter (The God particle) takes place is visually stunning. Rome and its Catholic rituals provide a beautiful backdrop for the film. The next two hours, however, are a wild car chase through Rome that I found pretty annoying after a while. The 
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[Read More] David Brooks dissects the Decline on the Republican Party
The only columnist who I follow every week is David Brooks. Maybe you should too.
The Long Voyage Home By DAVID BROOKS (NY Times)
Republicans generally like Westerns. They generally admire John Wayne-style heroes who are rugged, individualistic and brave. They like leaders—from Goldwater 
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[Read More] Tokyo & Kyoto, Japan
For many years, I dreamed about going to Japan. This is my first time visiting an Asian country. What strikes me right away is how friendly Japanese are not only to strangers but also to each other. Perhaps this is just show. Not understanding Japanese at all, I cannot figure out what goes on behind 
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[Read More] Frankfurt, Germany
I had a few hours to kill after landing at the Frankfurt airport. Since Frankfurt is not one of the obvious tourist attractions of Germany, I had never visited the old city center. I entered the historically significant Paulskirche, where representatives from all over Germany met in 1848 to discuss German unification and a constitution 
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[Read More] Hellhole: Is solitary confinement torture?
I knew that humans beings are social creatures and that we need others to reach our highest potential. But I had no idea that the brain completely disintegrates after longer periods of solitary confinement that is now practiced in many U.S. prisons. Read this fascinating story by Atul Gawande in the New Yorker. He happened 
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[Read More] TAILS OF MANHATTAN
I no longer have the patience to watch Woody Allen movies, but his short pieces in the New Yorker are still fun to read. Here is a wonderful postscript to the Madoff Ponzi scheme that made many jewish people wonder why they would be so credulous.
Woody Allen in New Yorker, March 30, 2009: Two 
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