Madonna On The Hidden World: From Material Girl to Queen Esther
By Dan Friedman
In her first of what she promises will be a regular column for Yediot Ahronot Madonna has explained how she was turned on to Kabbalah.
She notes how her fame and global traveling hadn’t helped “when it came to trying to understand why people suffered in the world or what the meaning of life was all about.” Kabbalah opened her eyes to how things worked: “Nature and the laws of Cause and Effect.” To the quintessential material girl, suddenly, “[l]ife no longer seemed like a series of Random events…[she] started to see patterns in life.” As she puts it, “I woke up.”
There are obvious encomia to those who have helped wake her up, and road-to-Damascus (or should that be from-Damascus?) insights. Perhaps her own alacrity or some judicious editing have kept the column short but interesting — even if its fascination lies with the author’s celebrity rather than her slightly sophomoric prose.
Two things still remain hidden though: How long will she continue writing the column (neither she nor Yediot Ahronot have specified the length of their arrangement), and why?
Why does a global star with nothing obvious to sell want to write her own column? And why does she start by omitting that most obvious of questions? Perhaps to get us to read the next one?!
January 7, 2008, 1:57pm
Kristol Hearts Huckabee
By Daniel Treiman
Neocon chieftain and liberal bogeyman Bill Kristol made his debut as the newest New York Times columnist this weekend. His choice of inaugural topic? The great potential of candidate Huckabee — the same subject his fellow Weekly Standard hand turned Times Op Ed columnist David Brooks tackled months ago.
Funny, I suggested just last week that Brooks and Kristol are two peas in a neocon pod. (Okay, Slate’s Jack Shafer explains why the two are actually quite different here.)
Kristol's a Timesman
By Daniel Treiman
The New York Times has hired Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol to write a weekly column for its Op Ed page. It seems, however, that not everyone is pleased with the paper’s decision to bring on the neo-con chieftain and outspoken Iraq War backer.The Web site Politico reports that news of the hire “caused a frenzy in the liberal blogosphere Friday night, with threats of canceling subscriptions and claims that the Gray Lady had been hijacked by neo-cons.”
Times editorial page editor Andy Rosenthal, however, chalked up the outcry to “this weird fear of opposing views.”
“The idea that The New York Times is giving voice to a guy who is a serious, respected conservative intellectual — and somehow that’s a bad thing,” Rosenthal told Politico. “How intolerant is that?”
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