Barely 10 years after George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" moment, other promoters of the Iraq disaster might feel like singing, "Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here." Michael Gordon, Thomas Friedman, now Bill Keller. Paging Judy Miller! The New York Times in recent days on its front page and...

Earlier this week here I published an excerpt from my new book, Hollywood Bomb: The Unmaking of 'The Most Important' Movie Ever Made, on Ayn Rand writing a wildly pro-nuclear script for a studio racing with MGM to produce the first epic about the Bomb. Here's another excerpt,...

It may surprise many to learn that, like many famous novelists, Ayn Rand had a period when she "went Hollywood." In 1943, Rand sold the rights for The Fountainhead to Warner Bros., and wrote the screenplay. She was then hired by top producer Hall Wallis as a writer, idea generator...

One of the great tales of Hollywood "censorship" remains little known today, more than 67 years after it transpired. And who was right at the center of it? None other than President Harry S. Truman. He even got rid of the actor playing him in the MGM movie. For good...

In the weeks following the atomic attacks on Japan 67 years ago today, and then for decades afterward, the United States engaged in airtight suppression of all film shot in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the bombings. This included vivid color footage shot by U.S. military crews and black-and-white Japanese newsreel...

Did a Beethoven-soaked Man Men hint at a Pete Campbell suicide coming later in the season?

There were hints coming out of the pre-season publicity that one major character would die this year (1966), and already we have had a Betty cancer scare -- which may still not be vanished...

Two years ago today, Julian Assange was getting ready to fly out of Iceland with the shocking video he'd been working on for weeks in his bag. It showed U.S. helicopter gunships firing on Iraqi civilians on the ground, along with two Reuters staffers, and at least two children riding...

This week marks a kind of double anniversary.

Two years ago on this date, Julian Assange was in Iceland readying the release of the shocking material that would catapult his group, WikiLeaks (and himself) to worldwide fame: the "Collateral Murder" video, an aerial view of U.S. Apache helicopters firing on...

After months of promotion HBO's film on Sarah Palin and the 2008 campaign, Game Change, will air (finally) tonight. Conservatives (including Palin, who has not seen the movie) claim that the film is completely unfair and mainly fiction, plus a valentine to Obama from Democratic Hollywood. But the filmmakers say...

After months of promotion HBO's film on Sarah Palin and the 2008 campaign, Game Change, will air (finally) this weekend. Conservatives (including Palin, who has not seen the movie) claim that the film is completely unfair and mainly fiction, plus a valentine to Obama from Democratic Hollywood. But the filmmakers...

After months of promotion HBO's film on Sarah Palin and the 2008 campaign, Game Change, will air (finally) this weekend. Conservatives (including Palin, who has not seen the movie) claim that the film is completely unfair and mainly fiction, plus a valentine to Obama from Democratic Hollywood. But the filmmakers...

From folk to punk and back again, Billy Bragg has long been one of our most important and popular "political" songwriters. He's even become something of an inheritor of Woody Guthrie's mantle, made plain by his series of albums with Wilco putting Woody's lyrics to new music--with volume three of...

Last October 15, mass protests took place around the world, organized by the burgeoning Occupy movement and other groups protesting income inequality, attacks on workers' rights, unfair austerity plans, and similar issues. In this country, for example, Times Square was flooded with thousands of demonstrators. But by far the largest...

The past two days in this space I have explored how in my musical life I have recently gone from "Roll Over, Beethoven" to just... Beethoven. I have a long background in rock 'n roll, even worked as the #2 editor at the legendary Crawdaddy for most of...

Yesterday in this space I began exploring how in my musical life I had not long ago gone from "Roll Over, Beethoven" to just... Beethoven. I had a long background in rock 'n roll, even worked as the #2 editor at the legendary Crawdaddy for most of the...

For nearly all of the 1970s, I served as the #2 editor at the legendary "rock culture" magazine Crawdaddy in New York City. I interviewed dozens of rock stars, from Frank Zappa to Patti Smith, attended hundreds of concerts, received thousands of records in the mail. Most notably, I helped...

As I've reported here, the state of Florida executed Manuel Valle, 61, two nights ago, using a new formula in its chemical cocktail for a lethal injection. He had been imprisoned for thirty-three years after being convicted of killing a cop in 1978. The U.S. Supreme Court, as...

It was hardly a surprise that my favorite songwriter/actor/novelist Steve Earle got involved in activism surrounding the execution of Troy Davis by the state of Georgia last week. He was among the many celebrities who signed the petition calling on the state to grant Davis clemency. Earle told an interviewer,...

As I noted last week, the next execution in the USA is set for today, at 4 p.m., with a state-ordered killing in Raiford, Florida, of Manuel Valle, age 61. Valle was convicted of killing one highway patrol officer and wounding another -- 33 years ago. So he has spent...

With polls showing that roughly six in ten Americans still support capital punishment in the United States (even with that number declining somewhat) it's hard to make the case that the practice will be abolished any time soon. But I've argued otherwise, pointing to support dropping to under...