Like life, the presentation of entertainment awards is not always fair. I still bristle every time I think about the 1970 Academy Awards. Despite the fact Midnight Cowboy took home the Oscar for best picture, best director (John Schlesinger) and best adapted screenplay (Waldo Salt), Dustin Hoffman’s portrayal of Ratso Rizzo was deprived of the best … Read more
This week a retiring trustee at Miami University informed me, at their July meeting, the board of trustees adopted a version of the University of Chicago principles of academic free speech. The email included a list of some of the other colleges and universities which had recently adopted similar guidelines which on the surface make … Read more
The signal is the truth. The noise is what distracts us from the truth. ~Nate Silver/FiveThirtyEight.COM Two totally unconnected news stories this week affirm how much we have been distracted by the noise when we should be focusing on the signal. The first started as a joke and ended up making national news. The second … Read more
We do not fear censorship, for we have no wish to offend with improprieties or obscenities, but we do demand, as a right, the liberty to show the dark side of wrong, that we may illuminate the bright side of virtue–the same liberty that is conceded to the art of the written word–the art to … Read more
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you already know a lot of the inspiration comes from my obsession with comedy and comedians. And for most successful stand-up comics, the prime directive is, “When it comes to comedy, anything and everything is fair game.” As a result we are exposed to some pretty raw … Read more