Ahead of D.C. rally, Stewart’s influence blooms
NEW YORK (Reuters) – President Barack Obama’s election led many political pundits to predict the popularity of American satirist Jon Stewart would wane. After all, mocking Republicans was his bread and butter.
But two years later with the nation just days away from an election expected to shift the balance of power in Washington, Stewart and his Comedy Central stable mate Stephen Colbert are growing ever more successful.
For Michael Caine’s second act, another memoir
NEW YORK (Reuters) – When his memoirs were published in 1992, Michael Caine planned to retire from acting, write a novel, plant a garden and enjoy his family.
But like a character in a heist movie, he was cajoled back for one more caper — in his case, a film with Jack Nicholson.
New book says President Bush broke laws on torture
By Mark Egan
NEW YORK (Reuters Life) – Torture sanctioned by President George W. Bush to fight terrorists was illegal and wrong and America has yet to confront the topic to avoid future abuses, the U.S. Solicitor General for President Ronald Reagan argues in a new book.
“Because it is Wrong: Torture, Privacy and Presidential Power in the Age of Terror” by Harvard Law scholar Charles Fried, a Republican, and his son Gregory Fried — a Suffolk University philosophy professor who votes Democrat — asks if it is permissible to torture in order to safeguard Americans.
Fears rise over growing anti-Muslim feeling in U.S.
(Photo: An honor guard trumpeter plays during the ceremony on the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in New York September 11, 2010/Chris Hondros)
Amid threats of Koran burning and a heated dispute over a planned Muslim cultural center in New York, Muslim leaders and rights activists warn of growing anti-Muslim feeling in America partly provoked for political reasons. “Many people now treat Muslims as ‘the other’ — as something to vilify and to discriminate against,” said Daniel Mach of the American Civil Liberties Union. And, he said, some people have exploited that fear in the media, “for political gain or cheap notoriety.”
The imam leading the project to build the cultural center, including a prayer room, near the site of the September 11, 2001 attacks said there was a rise of what he called “Islamophobia” and the debate had been radicalized by extremists. “The radicals in the United States and the radicals in the Muslim world feed off each other. And to a certain extent, the attention that they’ve been able to get by the media has even aggravated the problem,” Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf in an interview with ABC news aired on Sunday.
Book says many U.S. universities are waste of money
By Mark Egan
NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – Spending as much as $250,000 on a bachelors degree from world-renowned U.S. universities such as Harvard University and Yale is a waste of money, a new book asserts.
“Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money And Failing Our Kids – And What We Can Do About It,” urges parents and students to consider colleges that spend on teaching instead of sports and which encourage faculty to interact with students instead of doing research, taking sabbaticals and sitting on campus committees.
United beat Philadelphia for pre-season victory
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – English soccer giants Manchester United beat the Philadelphia Union 1-0 Wednesday in a scrappy game against Major League Soccer’s newest team.
United emerged with a victory at Lincoln Financial Field but labored in their second pre-season frenzy after beating Scottish team Celtic 3-1 last week in Toronto.
Disgraced “Sheriff of Wall Street” joins CNN
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who resigned in disgrace two years ago after admitting to using a prostitute, will co-host a new show on CNN, the cable news network said on Wednesday.
CNN said the man who rose to political prominence as New York’s attorney general, earning the nickname “Sheriff of Wall Street” for his relentless efforts prosecuting financial malfeasance, will co-host a show with 2010 Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post.
Pentagon hoped McChrystal piece would boost recruits
NEW YORK (Reuters) – When the U.S military gave Rolling Stone magazine access to the top general for Afghanistan, they probably hoped for a positive profile that might lure new recruits, not a scandal that would cost the general his job.
So says Rolling Stone Executive Editor Eric Bates on why his writer, Michael Hastings, was given enough unfettered access to General Stanley McChrystal for the “The Runaway General” piece that it brought down the commander.
U.S. author calls Afghanistan war “pointless”
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The United States should pull its troops out of Afghanistan because the war cannot be won and neighboring Pakistan is funding the Taliban to undermine U.S. interests, the author of a new book says.
Journalist and veteran Afghanistan expert Jere Van Dyk is intimate with the war-torn country, after spending 45 harrowing days in 2008 jailed there and terrified he would be killed.
Book asks why do video games matter?
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Video games almost took over Tom Bissell’s life, thrusting him into an intoxicating months-long, cocaine-fuelled binge playing Grand Theft Auto.
But like any good writer, he got a book out of it — and possibly a new career direction.
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