The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier has just gotten quite a bit of company: As many as 6,600 graves at the country’s hallowed Arlington National Cemetery for fallen U.S. service members may be mislabeled, one lawmaker said on Thursday.Political movements are becoming ever more like a match tossed into a room full of dynamite: No matter which stick you are aiming for, chances are a lot of others will fire off, too.A drama about a woman diagnosed with terminal cancer doesn’t exactly sound like the most entertaining new series on the fall prime-time slate. But there is more buzz surrounding Showtime’s “The Big C” than perhaps any other series premiering this season, and the incomparable Laura Linney is a major reason why the series is high on critics’ must-see lists.Although facts on the famed Clinton-Mezvinsky wedding, which is rumored to happen this weekend, are tighter than Hillary Clinton’s smile, some details have leaked out. Sources report that groom Marc Mezvinsky has “hurt” his father’s family by not inviting them to the wedding (Ed Mezvinsky pleaded guilty in 2002 to swindling investors out of $10 million.For Paul Rudd, the decision to star in Jay Roach’s new comedy, “Dinner for Schmucks,” was an easy one. “I thought the script was really funny,” he says. “That was it. It was kind of a no-brainer.” Of course Rudd, who’s built an impressive resume of smart comedies, was just as enamored of the man behind the camera. Subletting in NYC typically involves some kind of covert transaction. Try to find a budget traveler who hasn’t enjoyed the risk of Craigslist’s lease-free rentals. But thanks to a bill Gov. David Paterson signed into law last Friday, renting an apartment for less than 30 days isn’t kosher. Fortunately, there’s a saving grace for those in search of short-term living: Jersey City.New claims for unemployment benefits slipped last week, but stayed at a stubbornly high level that underscored the labor market recovery was having trouble gaining traction.Could nail mats like the Acushakti be the next Snuggies?Unless the locals covered you in meatballs and sang “Nessun Dorma” upon arrival, this vacation could hardly be more Italian. For this is a “Vespa vacation” — a two-wheeled tour of the nooks and crannies, the winding back roads and the off-the-beaten-track hidden gems of breathtaking Umbria, a beautiful region located in Central Italy.For many job-hopping careerists, smuggling a resignation letter in their bag like a guilty secret, there are few workplace rituals so hard as saying so long.
There’s a haunting television commercial in rotation these days. Thousands of nondescript people are bustling across a heavenly green meadow toward a gaping, bottomless hole where, like lemmings, they plunge into nonexistence. With their arms at their sides and their complicit legs still pumping, mass mentality, according to the ad, deprives them of a sizzling hamburger. It’s supposed to be funny.
Instead of making you laugh, though, the spot tunes into some newfound hardwiring of the American brain. For the last six years, out of the mainstream has meant you’re out of your mind.
According to a new book, at least now we have one thing in common with the Muslim world. Anouar Majid’s provocative new tome, “A Call for Heresy: Why Dissent is Vital to Islam and America,” argues that both Islam and the U.S. must look critically at history and propose serious alternatives to the injustices that globalization breeds today, the most damning and destructive of which, according to Majid, is Islamist terrorism.
“I am interested primarily in the ways [Muslims and Americans] are increasingly being subjected to religious, political and economic orthodoxies that suppress the intellectual legacies that once gave both traditions, however briefly, their greatest cultural élans,” Majid writes. At least in the U.S. today, it’s tough to argue with him — these years will prove to be anything but our finest cultural, political or spiritual era of our history.
During the Inquisition in the 13th century, heretics were burned at the stake. Today you can stand in front of the White House, call George W. Bush a war criminal (or worse, as some do), and police officers will walk right past you. When you are free to say anything, as the old adage goes, nobody listens. At the same time, remember what happened when Salman Rushdie committed what some considered blasphemy by writing a novel critical of the Prophet Muhammad? It earned Rushdie a fatwa from Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini that called for good Muslims to kill the author.
Neither the meaningless cacophony of the U.S. nor the reactionary repression by some radical Muslims ought to silence anyone, because Majid makes it clear that Islam and the U.S. have a lot more in common than we think. Both need to summon the courage, brilliance and wit to usurp the rapacious rules we’re all following, or it’s straight into the big hole we go.
Andrew Bast is the editor of the New York Inquirer.
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In the July MMMpod, Young Veins talk about breaking away from Panic! at the Disco, Keith Lockhart talks about Buckwheat Zydeco throwing the Boston Pops for a loop, Zooey Deschanel talks about how Roy Orbison inspired a She & Him song, Derek Miller of Sleigh Bells talks about how awesome Funkadelic is, and we talk about how awesome Jimmy Cliff is, who in turn talks about Sam Cooke and divine intervention. An explosive show for July! Oh yeah, and we also test your knowledge of America songs in the MMMPod medley.
