Author Archive

Making Fun of the 60s and 70s, Again

Written by John Strausbaugh on June 13, 2000. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

Sixties and 70s bashing is basically making fun of the 60s and 70s without the sense of humor. It has been practiced for some years now by conservatives who believe that (a) American civilization is going down the crapper and (b) it’s all the fault of those darn 60s and 70s people. You know the
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Summer in the City of Rednecks: Baltimore in the 1960s

Written by John Strausbaugh on May 30, 2000. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

Universal air conditioning was as slow coming to Baltimore as the color tv (gamely resisted by my parents until very nearly the 1980s, when they finally also caved in to central air). Except for the best movie theaters and certain expensive restaurants, air was rare; most places, like my parochial school classrooms, like the bank
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Esthetical Incorrectness, or What We Used to Call Bad Art

Written by John Strausbaugh on May 16, 2000. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

And there’s Chusid, a friend of and occasional contributor to New York Press, who’s made it one of his life’s goals to champion Bad Music. Bad music. There are tracks on this CD bad enough to give you an earache. And that’s the good stuff. The really bad stuff here is so bad it bypasses
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Diplomatic Impunity The UN Honors a Diplomat Long Ignored by His Own Country

Written by John Strausbaugh on April 25, 2000. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

John Paul Abranches, 69, a retired architectural draftsman from California, came to New York last week to attend a ceremony at the United Nations honoring his father on the anniversary of his death. A Portuguese consul in France at the outbreak of World War II, his father had executed what one historian calls "the biggest
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When the Spirit World Invades Human Affairs

Written by John Strausbaugh on April 18, 2000. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

That’s from an essay called "The Power of Possession in Northwest Madagascar" by Barnard anthropologist Lesley A. Sharp, in the anthology Spirit Possession edited by Heike Behrend and Ute Luig (University of Wisconsin Press, 170 pages, $22.95). Spirits Note that "living and dead royalty agreed" to let the fishing continue. The fishery, run by French
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Coeds at War

Written by John Strausbaugh on March 28, 2000. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

In today’s New Navy, meanwhile, boy sailors and girl sailors ship out together on aircraft carriers, spending weeks cooped up below decks. They’re not supposed to be fraternizing–or drinking, or smoking or using cuss-words, or going on shore leave, or reading Playboy, for that matter–but Gutmann says that between the boredom and the repressed hormones
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How Lame is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

Written by John Strausbaugh on March 21, 2000. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

He also once said, "Rock ’n’ roll is very, very important and very, very ridiculous." I went to the 15th annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the Waldorf-Astoria last week. I don’t suppose you’ll be surprised to know it struck me as the very, precise and complete antithesis of rock ’n’
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The AIDS Heretics: A Panel Discussion

Written by John Strausbaugh on March 14, 2000. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

The AIDS Heretics How reliable is HIV testing? "Terrifyingly unreliable." Why does everyone believe in it? "The world’s greatest example of mass hysteria." Celia Farber, Nicholas Regush and Charles Ortleb question virtually everything you think you know about AIDS–what it is, what causes it, how to treat it. For their pains they’ve been vilified by
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Jonathan Ames Gets Banned in Istanbul; Medieval Englishmen in Rome

Written by John Strausbaugh on March 7, 2000. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

Iletisim printed 2000 copies of the translation and had sold maybe 600 when the ban came down, according to Siegel. Siegel had not determined at the time of this writing whether the publisher and translator face fines or incarceration or both; she was concerned that defending itself against the government’s charges could very well bankrupt
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The Art of the Iranian Revolution

Written by John Strausbaugh on February 29, 2000. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

Of course, in many ways successful revolutions are harder on their revolutionary leaders than failed ones. Failed revolutions produce good myths and martyrs, and prove the ardency of core believers. Successful ones put those faithful followers in the uncomfortable position of becoming a political oxymoron: revolutionary bureaucrats. And it is axiomatic that the next revolution
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