Britain might not make steel anymore, or cars, or pop music worth listening to, but, boy, are we world-beaters when it comes to tyranny. And now classical music, which was once taught to young people as a way of elevating their minds and tingling their souls, is being mined for its potential as a deterrent against bad behavior...
“Basically, my collection is about sex, drugs, Beats, hippies, punks.” Imagine a long, thoughtful pause here. “And great reads...”
In sum: a Muslim who attacks military targets, including in war zones or even in their own countries that have been invaded by a foreign army, is a Terrorist. A non-Muslim who flies an airplane into a government building in pursuit of a political agenda is not, or at least is not a Real Terrorist with a capital T -- not the kind who should be tortured and thrown in a cage with no charges and assassinated with no due process. Nor are Christians who stand outside abortion clinics and murder doctors and clinic workers. Nor are acts undertaken by us or our favored allies designed to kill large numbers of civilians or which will recklessly cause such deaths as a means of terrorizing the population into desired behavioral change -- the Glorious Shock and Awe campaign and the pummeling of Gaza. Except as a means for demonizing Muslims, the word is used so inconsistently and manipulatively that it is impoverished of any discernible meaning...
The delight of the film lies not only in Pakula’s recognition of what makes a cliché an archetype, and what he does with his film’s archetypal content, but also in the sheer audacity of the Pakula style...
Apparently, everyone decided to take a break from reading the day in 2002 when author and Brown University psychiatrist Dr. Peter Kramer wrote in the New York Times that “Prozac was no more, and perhaps less, effective in treating major depression than prior medications. . . . I argued that the theories of brain functioning that led to the development of Prozac must be wrong or incomplete.” Tell that to TV and those ads that hypnotize the consumer-patient directly: “You just shouldn’t have to feel this way anymore” (Zoloft); “Lexapro improves symptoms of depression.” And the clincher: “Feeling unusually sad or irritable? Find it hard to concentrate? Lose your appetite? Lack energy? Or having trouble feeling pleasure? . . . To help bring serotonin levels closer to normal, the medicine doctors now prescribe most often is Prozac.” For all we know, like 35 percent of American adults, according to a 2003 survey on the health effects of direct-to-consumer drug advertising, Kazmierczak walked into his doctor’s office on a day he felt a little worse for wear and requested a prescription for the fix-all himself...
cannons fly up against the sky,
moon up high,
banners ride Cancer 'cross Eli,