Will students engage in the upcoming presidential elections in the definitive way they did for Obama in '08? The general perception in the media is that they might not. I took advantage of a visit from Aaron Rodwin (my grandson), a sophomore and political science major at Hofstra, and a...

"I Came to Testify," produced and written by Pamela Hogan and narrated by Matt Damon, is the first of the the 5-part PBS series: "Women, War & Peace".

Reviewed by Barbara Probst Solomon

With the passage of years there has been forgetting and a blurring of...

The bumpy road for Larry Rivers' reputation has included early fame, adulation, scandal, scorn, neglect, and above all, lack of comprehension. His lifelong innate bookishness is barely noticed. Yet recently in "Refurbished Reputation for a Nervy Painter," Holland Cotter in The New York Times, breaking with the usual assessments of...

First we tried to save and better the world through the Iraq war, right now it seems we are trying to appeal to the world, specifically the Muslim world, with our goodness and tolerance; the occasion being the controversial construction of a mosque within two blocks of Ground Zero. Instead...

This past week, the internationally acclaimed human rights judge Baltasar Garzón has been suspended in Spain from his judgeship, and indeed faces trial as having exceeded his powers in his attempt to open up crimes against humanity committed during the Franco era. Unfortunately, Spain's Supreme Court has backed up Garzón's...

The Three Weissmanns of Westport
by Cathleen Shine
Farrar Straus and Giroux
292 pp $25.00

Normance
By Louis-Ferdinand Céline
translation and introduction
by Marlon Jones
Dalkey Archives
371 pp $14.95

Bagatelles pour un massacre

The wacky idea that the much delayed trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed should take place in crowded lower Manhattan in the court near the World Trade Center demonstrated what's wrong with Obama-think. Obama, the former law professor, leans toward a high flown philosophic scenario where American justice and transparency would...

The Jewish Museum, one of the first major New York museums to celebrate -- and acknowledge -- Andy Warhol's Pop Art and Larry Rivers' pre-Pop, or bridge to Pop, is the perfect setting for this stunning major retrospective of Man Ray (curated by Mason Klein), in all his multiple phases...

While Obama was receiving the Nobel Peace Prize he was running into trouble at home with his liberal constituency for inactivity on major issues and too much courting of Republicans. In Congress, Alan Grayson, a young lawyer from Florida, in an impassioned speech, mesmerized Congress in true Jimmy Stewart "Mr....

Call me picky, but this past weekend I was dumbfounded at the movie vision of a 1948 Paris resplendent with sumptuous food portrayed in Julie & Julia. That year much of Europe was suffering from starvation. In Paris there was an odd mix of lingering food rationing, a thriving black...

Being a writer, not a politician, I am giving a pass to the obvious political implications in Governor Mark Sanford's disregard for his obligations as governor in not letting his staff know his whereabouts. In this particular piece my emphasis is more on the way women are depicted in these...