Tennessee

With her dark scowls and dour “Don’t tread on me” warning signals, Christina Ricci  read more »

US Guys: The True and Twisted Mind of the American Man by Charlie LeDuff, The Penguin Press, 242 pag  read more »

Maybe the most startling development of the last two weeks of Campaign '06 has been the sudden meltdown of Harold Ford's U.S. Senate prospects in Tennessee.

As near as anyone can tell, it's not really his fault.

In mid-October, polls showed Ford, a five-term congressman from Memphis, pulling ahead of Republican Bob Corker, a not-at-all surprising result given that (a) the national current so strongly favored the Democrats; (b) the glib and telegenic Ford had shrewdly cultivated a red state-friendly image as a church-going, Pelosi-weary, Second Amendment enthusiast; (c) Corker, who failed in a 1994 Senate bid, had run a listless campaign that had put his party's social conservative base to sleep.

Ford's surge created considerable national buzz, since a win would make him the first African-American elected to the Senate from the South - and only the fourth African-American senator since reconstruction. In the last few weeks, though, his numbers have nosedived, and now he lags anywhere from three to 12 points behind Corker.

Ford, who was joined on the stump by Barack Obama over the weekend, claims he's closing the gap, an assertion a recent Gallup poll seemed to support.

But to some observers, the race is already over, thanks to an ugly political truth: In the privacy of the voting booth, racism, however subtle, still exists. Ford, the theory goes, needs to be ahead in the polls heading into Election Day to offset the silent defections he'll suffer when rural white voters - who may have told pollsters they'd vote for the Democratic Senate candidate - actually see Ford's name on the ballot.  read more »

Stricken with anxiety as the polls continue to indicate a Democratic resurgence, certain Republicans  read more »

Barack Obama, a month after slyly headlining Tom Harkin’s annual Iowa steak fry, finally ackno  read more »

In suit pants too short and black boots too polished, Al Gore stepped haltingly to the podium of the  read more »

One of the great things about blogging is that all the stuff I fulminated about in private over the last few years (not getting assigned to write about it for Mainstream magazines) I now have to put down in cyberspace, and take responsibility for. Sometimes people get angry at me, sometimes I go over the line. But I learn a lot about my ideas, and myself. I make mistakes, and I don't get fired or disciplined. I am truly grateful for this experience. It's made me more intellectually and emotionally mature.

A lot of this process, of course, involves my hot-button relationship with my Jewish roots, and my self-description as an "assimilator." I get active comment on this score, a lot of it judgmental. Frankly, I am even grateful to these people.  read more »

Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour (1967), from a screenplay by Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière, based  read more »

Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour (1967), from a screenplay by Buñuel and Jean-Claude  read more »

In case you don’t know, Glenn Reynolds is the biggest sole proprietor in the political blogosp  read more »

In case you don’t know, Glenn Reynolds is the biggest sole proprietor in the political blogosphere  read more »

Yesterday in Jim Romenesko's letters forum, former Giant magazine editor and serial journalistic cliche slayer, Mark Remy made an open plea to his fellow practitioners of the journalistic dark arts to stop using "Cruise Control" in headlines about Tom Cruise, his lady love Katie Holmes, War of the Worlds, and his outspoken campaign against psychiatry.

"Is this not, literally, the single laziest pun you can think of?" Remy pleaded. But while Remy's letter was helpful in shedding light on the "Cruise Control" problem, it didn't offer any suggestions for what to replace it with. So here's a list of new Tom Cruise-themed puns for journalists to use, free of charge. (Some exceptions apply; void in Tennessee.)  read more »

Carnival Cruise Ground Control to Major Tom Tommy Knockers Tom to Make the Donuts Tommy...Boy Interview With the Vampire Who Is Jumping All Over Your Couch Tom and a Half The Nation Cruise Featuring Victor Navasky --Matt Haber

It's Memorial Day, and he lays out his uniform on the bed.  read more »

A tremendous event is happening at the Public with Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart , and you must hu  read more »

I'm at a dinner party in Sag Harbor.The puckish, balding man with an electric grin-slightly wild, sl  read more »