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Norman Lear was the the writer and producer behind television hits All in the Family, Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time, The Jeffersons, Good Times and Maude. He’s also a successful liberal activist behind People for the American Way, a group he founded in the early 1980s to fight the influence of the Christian Right.
Too frequently in print journalism, headline-induced spin ruins an otherwise solid news article. Such seems to be the case in this New York Times article on the alleged “return” of indulgences.
It has taken me some time to get a handle on that recent New York Times feature that ran with the headline, “Uncovering Lost Path of the Most Wanted Nazi” by Souad Mekhennet and Nicholas Kulish.
Since early in this decade, when I became aware of Mike White’s filmmaking career, I’ve thought it would be rewarding to get him together with his father, Mel, for a conversation about filmmaking and faith. Anyone who has followed Mel White’s career knows he once ghostwrote material for Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham and Pat Robertson, and that he outed himself and became a gay-rights activist in the early 1990s. His work on 53 documentaries usually gets short shrift, even on Internet Movie Database.
In the immortal words of Meg Ryan in one of my all-time favorite flicks: “I have no response to that.”
After California voters passed Proposition 8 last fall, some opponents of the measure were quite angry. In addition to public protests, some people set up web sites singling out Mormon supporters of the measure, using public records to identify them. Other web sites listed all Prop. 8 supporters, regardless of their religious background.
I would like to extend warm congratulations to guardian.co.uk, which responded to a tedious bus-slogan campaign in the most appropriate way: Launching a Web-based challenge for readers to write new counter-slogans.
Yesterday, I pointed out that journalists covering financial donations to California’s ballot initiative on marriage should attempt to put contributions in context. The latest filings covering donations show same-sex marriage supporters raised $43.3 million in 2008 while the measure’s sponsors raised $39.9 million. This makes it the most expensive social issue race in the nation’s history. Lots of donors and lots of big donors weighed in on this contentious issue.
I love a good story, don’t you? One that you can sink your teeth into by a fireplace or on your porch, with a cup of tea or a nice craft brew at your side.
