'On art in the age of Trump'

Gallery chronicle column by James Panero at The New Criterion.

"It was [Pauline] Kael’s fate for her life’s work as a film critic to become overshadowed by a single political quip: that she couldn’t understand how Nixon won, because no one she knows voted for him. That aphorism, it should be noted, turns out to be somewhat off from what Kael actually said. At a 1972 talk before the Modern Language Association, Kael remarked that 'I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.'"

Inc.-strained wretches

"Famed editor Harry Grant, who created the Milwaukee Journal’s unique employee-owned structure in the 1930s to protect its stature and seriousness forever, must be rolling over in his grave." says Bruce Murphy, concluding his Murphy's Law column on How Gannett Will Shrink the Journal Sentinel: New owners will drastically diminish the size and scope of state’s largest newspaper.

Template for weekend TV reporters

"(Name) was (killed/shot/stabbed) tonight by his (brother/father/son/sister/husband/wife/friend) in an argument over a (card game/drug deal/woman/family dispute)."
-Carol Larson

Purple prose

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial page editor David D. Haynes announces its "Purple Wisconsin" feature, hosting a group of political bloggers of varying political viewpoints.

"The idea here is to try to elevate the level of discussion about the most important issues of the day - especially at a time when the political debate too often has been hijacked by extremists on both sides."

P.S. Calls to mind what Emanuel L. Philipp said in 1910,

"The Milwaukee Journal adopted a come-let-us-reason-together editorial tone that had all the appearance of suppressed hostility..."

This is what rearranged deck chairs looks like

notes Jeff Jarvis

Cliche watch: Words still matter

A December 30, 2008 editorial in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The National Conference of Editorial Writers — a group of savants whose erudition is matched only by their comeliness — recently engaged in a bout of self-examination. The topic: words and phrases that have outlived their usefulness or that weren't all that useful in the first place.

How about the phrase "outlived their usefulness"?

(via M.Z. Hemingway at Get Religion)

Pyric victory

"It's like putting out the fire in the kitchen of the Titanic while the ship is going down," said Felicia Herman, the executive director of Natan, a foundation financed by young Jewish philanthropists, speaking about the fallout from the Madoff-linked losses in the midst of a larger global financial crisis.

Jewish Charities Scramble to Cover Losses to Trader: Alleged Madoff Scheme Closes Doors, by Robin Shulman, Washington Post, December 24, 2008

Church facing wave of trouble

Tom Heinen scrapes past a titanic cliche in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

With Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan at the helm, the Catholic Church here is navigating turbulent times with a growing storm of financial pressures, embarrassing documentation of old sexual-abuse coverups, and the opening of long-closed routes for childhood victims of clergy molestation to file lawsuits in Wisconsin. ...

The larger question is whether the archdiocese or any individual parishes could be capsized by a wave of red ink from new lawsuits. ...