Author Archive

Articles by Gal Beckerman | Email the Author

 

1. The Water Cooler

   Allan M. Jalon on the Future of Arts Journalism and Cuts at the Los Angeles Times

   November 18, 2005 06:05 PM

   Allan M. Jalon was formerly on staff at the Detroit Free Press and the Los Angeles Times. He is a long-time freelance arts journalist writing mostly about visual arts and books, who was a 2002-3003 fellow with the National Arts... Continue reading

2. Blog Report

   Incendiary Musings

   November 17, 2005 12:39 PM

   After about a week of denying Italian state television claims that the U.S. military used white phosphorous against insurgents in last year's battle of Falluja, the Pentagon finally admitted yesterday that they had indeed used the incendiary... Continue reading

3. Blog Report

   Chopping Woodward

   November 16, 2005 03:14 PM

   The blogosphere is reeling with the surprise news that Bob Woodward is now implicated in the Valerie Plame affair -- according to his testimony to Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, he learned of Plame's name and position at the CIA... Continue reading

4. Magazine Report

   Why Did France Burn? A Rorschach Test

   November 15, 2005 03:00 PM

   The air is still thick with the smoke of those incinerated cars, but already a whole range of motives have been trotted out and examined. For American scribes, the riots in France were a Rorschach test, with every political pundit... Continue reading

5. Blog Report

   Does Torture Even Exist? If So, When?

   November 14, 2005 03:48 PM

   When President Bush proclaimed last week that Americans "do not torture" - even as his vice president and secretary of defense were continuing to fiercely oppose the popular McCain amendment outlawing any "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" -- he opened... Continue reading

6. Behind the News

   Cyber Wars

   November 10, 2005 02:00 PM

   Whenever young people erupt in civil unrest, as in these past two weeks in France, Western societies reflexively look to blame sources of angry anti-establishmentarianism. Just like clockwork, there will always be some Ozzie Osborne to finger. This morning, David... Continue reading

7. Behind the News

   Clearing Away the Fog of War - Or Adding to It?

   November 9, 2005 05:07 PM

   War breeds rumors. As armies collide, bombs fall and casualties mount, it becomes more and more difficult to sort truth from untruth -- and in the Middle East, with its culture of conspiracy theory, this is doubly true. Journalists in... Continue reading

8. Magazine Report

   Karl Rove - Albatross, or the Only Way Out?

   November 8, 2005 05:20 PM

   That seems to be a central preoccupation in the wake of the leak investigation that has already led to the indictment and resignation of Scooter Libby. Karl Rove, who is mentioned in the indictment itself as "official A," is still... Continue reading

9. Politics

   Asking The Wrong Guy

   November 7, 2005 02:51 PM

   The Washington Post today explores what it describes as an increasingly lonely and quixotic attempt by Vice President Dick Cheney to keep the government's standards of treatment for detainees and those under interrogation as flexible as possible.And... Continue reading

10. Politics

    Caricature: Works With Politicians, Not So Much With Real Life

    November 4, 2005 04:11 PM

    Love her or hate her, Maureen Dowd never ceases to elicit strong emotion. Whether she's depicting Bill Clinton as a sex-starved hound dog, or George W. Bush as a clueless incompetent, Dowd sees herself as the caricaturist. ... Continue reading

11. Behind the News

    The Washington Post Gets Scooped - On Purpose?

    November 3, 2005 03:45 PM

    Yesterday we wrote about the Washington Post's decision not to disclose the "Eastern European democracies" in which the CIA set up its clandestine "black sites" -- interrogation centers where U.S. laws do not apply to the treatment of suspected... Continue reading

12. Behind the News

    Washington Post Tiptoes Into a Black Hole

    November 2, 2005 05:08 PM

    The Washington Post today reveals something that has been long rumored: the CIA is maintaining secret facilities outside the U.S. where it is holding suspected terrorists. The point of these extra-territorial holding pens, as the article puts it, is... Continue reading

13. Politics

    Prying Open Guantanamo

    November 1, 2005 03:07 PM

    Finally today, after nearly a month and a half of silence, we have word again about the ongoing hunger strike down at the American military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And it's not good. The last we heard about the... Continue reading

14. Politics

    On Bad News and Good News From Iraq

    October 31, 2005 04:10 PM

    In the flow of bad news engulfing the Bush administration last week was the coincidental fact that the 2,000th military death in Iraq happened to fall on exactly the same day as the Iraqi constitution was officially passed. The... Continue reading

15. Politics

    Rove is Dead; Long Live Rove!

    October 28, 2005 03:23 PM

    If you're wondering whether special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald might still be going after Karl Rove, our nation's papers aren't going to help you out. Here's what the New York Times headlined its breaking news bulletin on its Web site (emphasis... Continue reading

16. Behind the News

    When a Number Isn’t Just a Number - and When It Is

    October 26, 2005 05:51 PM

    Yesterday's announcement of the 2,000th military casualty in Iraq brought with it the predictable news accounts of the number. And where the press saw itself highlighting an important marker in the Iraq war, many conservatives saw it as obvious politicization... Continue reading

17. Behind the News

    Getting It Right on Rosa Parks

    October 25, 2005 03:37 PM

    There's probably no civil rights figure whose story was more clouded by myth. Rosa Parks, who died yesterday, has been interpreted and reinterpreted over the years. Maybe this was because her role in the movement was both as a human... Continue reading

18. Politics

    The Rebirth of Body Counts

    October 24, 2005 02:32 PM

    During the war in Vietnam, one of the signs that the government wasn't leveling with the public was the exaggerated body count produced daily by the military high command in Saigon. When, after years of inflated enemy death tolls, the... Continue reading

19. The Water Cooler

    Michael Kirk on Torture, “Frontline” and Rumsfeld

    October 21, 2005 06:02 PM

    Mike Kirk Last Tuesday, the much-acclaimed PBS show "Frontline" debuted a new documentary, "The Question of Torture," which took a comprehensive look at how the rules of... Continue reading

20. Blog Report

    Fitzmas Frenzy

    October 20, 2005 02:20 PM

    As we enter "Fitzmas" Season -- yes, that's the word mostly lefty bloggers are using to describe the early Christmas they expect once Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald announces his indictments -- the blogosphere is a frenzy of accusations, rumors,... Continue reading

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