Links

An angry article in wall street journal about how political correctness is destroying American civic institutions.

Privileged, rowdy white jocks at an elite, Southern college, a poor, young black stripper, and an alleged rape: It was a juicy, made-for-the-media story of race, class and sex, and it was told and retold for months with a ferocious, moralistic intensity.

Probably she has never heard of the crying wolf story. Don't read WSJ, got the link from arts and letters daily.

In New York Times a profile of Jodie Foster by Manohla Dargis. Another case of a great actress stuck in dumb films. There is also a slide show about her new film with an audio commentary from Dargis. I wasn't really interested in her new film The Brave One but Dargis is comparing it to Taxi Driver!

And speaking of that an article in the guardian despairing about the same subject:

Flicking through the newspapers yesterday I was stopped in my tracks by an image of the new Vanity Fair cover. This shows Nicole Kidman - two-time Oscar nominee, one-time winner - with a military cap on her head and an open-mouthed expression. Said expression is, I guess, supposed to be a Monroe-esque pout, but just makes her look (though it pains me to say it) completely bloody vacant. Beneath this vacuous visage, for no apparent reason, she is holding her shirt open to expose her white, bra-clad breasts. There is something strangely passionless and perfunctory about the pose - as though, off camera, a doctor has just shown up and told her it's time for an impromptu mammary examination. (Or, indeed, the magazine editor has just told her she is off the cover unless she gets on with it and gets 'em out.) "Nicole Kidman Bares All" screams the coverline.

Never read Vanity Fair either but the description piqued my interest and I googled for the cover. Safe for work, it is pretty tame actually and it does fit the description about routine mammary examination. Other pictures in the slideshow are worth looking however.