Key Features
Monday, 24 October 2011 12:35
THEATER: Say Goodnight Gracie
The Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts presented Say Goodnight Gracie, with Alan Safier as Nathan Birnbaum, better known as the late iconic entertainer George Burns.
In the one-man show -- which Safier brings to Smithtown, Long Island on Nov. 12 -- Burns looks back upon his impoverished, plucky youth on the lower east side of New York and his disastrous but tenacious early years in vaudeville, all leading up to the momentous day when he met a talented young girl named Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen, whose endearing dizziness was a perfect match to his flawless comic timing. Together, they rose to the pinnacles of vaudeville, film, radio and television. Gracie's early retirement and untimely death forced George to start from square one, in life as well as in his career. Eventually, he achieved an equal level of success as a solo raconteur and Academy Award-winning actor. …
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Key Features
Monday, 08 August 2011 18:24
PUBLISHER'S NOTEBOOK -- Walmart: Save face, live hypocritically
Written by David J. Glenn
The other day we received a mailing from Walmart, which, as you probably know, is trying to locate an outlet anywhere they can in New York City. On one side of the flyer was a huge photo of glistening red apples, with the heading:"Care about a sustainable future? So does Walmart!"It went on: "That's why we're working hard to be supplied 100 percent by renewable energy, create zero waste, and sell products that sustain the environment."Now, I'm not a scientist, but it seems to me that this goes against the laws of physics. I really don't think it's possible to actually have zero waste -- any process, natural or man-made, inevitably produces some kind of waste product. And 100 percent renewable energy? Well, unless they plan to set up a series of windmills or solar panels to handle heating, cooling, lighting, refrigeration, and everything else in their big-box stores, I…
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Key Features
The hard-earned successes of the protests and movements of the early and mid 20th century have had a disturbing consequence – it seems that every subsequent movement, no matter how narrow or even misplaced, is instantly put in the same league as these very legitimate struggles.
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Key Features
The hard-earned successes of the protests and movements of the early and mid 20th century have had a disturbing consequence – it seems that every subsequent movement, no matter how narrow or even misplaced, is instantly put in the same league as these very legitimate struggles.
The activist group PETA calls for the “liberation” of chickens. Unions representing government workers who often grab six-figure incomes in overtime (from tax money) and enjoy virtually free health and retirement benefits (again, from tax money) compare their demands for even more money and fewer working hours to those of coal miners in the 1930s. And, as pointed out in the accompanying Publisher’s Notebook, smokers protesting the city’s ban on lighting up in a park or at the beach liken their cause to that of Rosa Parks who refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man, igniting the…
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Key Features
Thursday, 02 June 2011 02:26
PUBLISHER'S NOTEBOOK -- A ‘Rosa Parks moment’ it's not
Written by David J. Glenn
The ban on smoking in any public park or beach in New York City has taken effect, with the inevitable protests from smokers who feel their civil rights are being violated.
Audrey Silk, founder of the “Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment (with the catchy acronym CLASH), staged a Memorial Day “smoke-in” at Brighton Beach, which attracted a small horde of media representatives but only a handful of actual protesters.
She described the “movement” as a “Rosa Parks moment.”
I suppose every protester is entitled to a share of hyperbole, but comparing the “right” to smoke to the fight for human dignity and against racial persecution, is a bit much. Rather than elevate the issue to one of civil rights, it serves to denigrate the actual civil rights struggle of the 1950s and ’60s.
I will say, though, that the city’s ban on smoking in a wide-open…
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Key Features
The headline-stealer of the moment – at least at the time of this writing – is the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the French head of the International Monetary Fund and, before the arrest, anyway, a key contender for the French presidency. He’s accused of sexually assaulting a maid in his posh midtown hotel suite.
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Key Features
More Key Features:
OPINION: Is opposition to the Voorhies Avenue mosque just an exercise in fear? Created Friday, 13 May 2011 12:25
PUBLISHER'S NOTEBOOK -- Not a perfect PLAN Created Thursday, 12 May 2011 01:19
PUBLISHER'S NOTEBOOK: Don't drink the water Created Monday, 04 April 2011 23:36
PUBLISHER'S NOTEBOOK: A shock to my thinking Created Thursday, 24 February 2011 08:15
PUBLISHER'S NOTEBOOK -- It's not nanny-ish Created Tuesday, 01 February 2011 15:25
PUBLISHER'S NOTEBOOK: Best Choice? Created Sunday, 16 January 2011 14:39
LETTERS: ‘We don’t stand a chance’ Created Tuesday, 14 December 2010 22:58
PUBLISHER'S NOTEBOOK: A cover letter Created Wednesday, 24 November 2010 22:11
PUBLISHER'S NOTEBOOK: A blatant conflict of interest Created Monday, 15 November 2010 21:16
PUBLISHER'S NOTEBOOK: A horror averted Created Tuesday, 21 September 2010 23:11
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THEATER: Say Goodnight Gracie
The Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts presented Say Goodnight Gracie, with Alan Safier as Nathan Birnbaum, better known as the late iconic entertainer George Burns. In the…Leave a Comment! Read more...
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PUBLISHER'S NOTEBOOK -- Walmart: Save face, live hypocritically
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