Pirates! They weren’t all Johnny Depp-swaying, dainty and witty denizens of the sea. Though they’ve been with us from the ancient world to the present wave of Somalian ship hijackings, most pirates were a 17th-century phenomenon whose short careers ended bloodily, leaving behind rumors of their fearsome beards as much as of their actual material […]
Continue readingAside from catching chicken pox as a kid, nobody would ever go out of their way to get sick. Why would they? The best you can hope for is a few days off from work, and really, playing hooky isn’t as fun since Bob Barker stopped hosting The Price Is Right. However, there are a […]
Continue readingBefore everyone had a cell phone and the capacity to record video on the fly, a police beat down was, by sheer chance, caught on tape in Los Angeles on March 3, 1991. Public fury about racism and police brutality erupted when a portion of the video showing several LAPD officers Tasering, kicking, stomping and […]
Continue reading“In the theatre there are 1,500 cameras rolling at the same time- in the cinema, only one,” as quoted by Orson Welles, the prolific director of the most studied film of all time, Citizen Kane. Within the last century cinema has grown from pioneering silent films into orchestrated musicals, “spaghetti westerns” and has taken us […]
Continue readingThe 20th century was a time of great change, with devastating wars, the rise of two superpowers, and the fall of one. Demonstrations have been used throughout history to change the world, both peacefully and violently, but in the 20th century activism came into its own in an age of protest. 10. March on Washington […]
Continue readingThe cliché goes that “a picture is worth a thousand words,” but some photographs eschew any such numeric limitation and go on talking to us forever; certain photo portraits have that rare power. Far more than pictorial representations of celebrated or instantly recognizable figures, they capture so much more, seeming to encapsulate not simply the […]
Continue readingBeing diagnosed with any incurable disease is misfortune enough, but society for some reason looks upon the diagnoses of rare diseases as a special kind of grim fate dealt by the universe, the house which always wins. But sometimes — a one in ten million or more sometimes — a person is stricken with a […]
Continue readingThe issue of copycat crime is a fascinating one that raises deep questions in the fields of psychology, philosophy, criminology and jurisprudence. Are filmmakers – if not legally, at least morally – responsible for their creations that motivate people to commit crime? Would these people act in such a manner but for the movie? Should […]
Continue readingThe Mafia. The name alone conjures shadowy images of underworld activity – debts and allegiances, honor and respect, family, power, and death. Add to that the popular cinematic exploits of Hollywood Mafioso as portrayed by Brando, De Niro, Pacino et al, and there is a romanticism associated with ‘the men of honor’ that is difficult […]
Continue readingThis year we set out to come up with a useful and interesting list showcasing 100 of the best blogs on the Internet. This list should give you a good inside track into the vast world of ideas out there on the Internet. It’s impossible to scour the net for all worthy blogs in a […]
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