News & Ideas

My columns, reports and essays cover a range of topics, from interviews with movie stars, authors and presidential candidates to an exclusive meeting in Miami, Florida, with child refugee Elian Gonzalez—who fled from Communism—during the legal battle over his plea for asylum.

Interview: Alejandro Amenabar on Agora

Posted May 30, 2010

Director Amenabar, whom I first met and interviewed at the Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard to discuss his haunting, Oscar-winning The Sea Inside in 2004, talked briefly with me about Agora from Spain during an interview by telephone. The South American-born composer, writer and director, who speaks in a thick Spanish accent, talked about Agora’s ideas. Read more >>

Alejandro Amenabar on The Sea InsideThe Young Man and the Sea

Posted May 27, 2010

Making an uplifting movie about a man who wants to die was a challenge Alejandro Amenabar couldn't resist. After the fantasies Open Your Eyes (remade as Vanilla Sky) and The Others, the 32-year-old writer, director and composer chose a more intimate—and controversial—subject for his latest picture, The Sea Inside (Mar Adentro in Spanish). He started with the basics. Read more >>

Russian Writings on Hollywood, Why Businessmen Need PhilosophyFocusing on Two Views of Ayn Rand's Sense of Life

Posted October 24, 2009

The Russian-born writer Ayn Rand (1905-1982) lives, at least in a sense she probably would have relished: through her ideas. Rand's books, including The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, continue to sell more than 350,000 copies a year. A Library of Congress readers' poll in 1991 ranked Atlas second to the Bible in importance for Americans' lives, and the U.S. Postal Service recently announced that she'll grace a new first-class stamp, featuring an elegant young Rand against the backdrop of one of her favorite literary symbols: the skyscraper. Read more >>

We the Living Another Ayn Rand Novel for Our Times

Posted September 24, 2009

Though increased sales of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand have been getting the attention, Rand’s lesser-known first novel, We the Living (1936), is also relevant in today’s turbulent times. Rand once described We the Living, adapted for film in 1942, available for the first time on DVD, and recently published in trade paperback, as “a book for Americans. Read more >>

John Porter

Posted March 25, 2009

John Porter was a U.S. Congressman from Illinois for 21 years, serving on the powerful Appropriations Committee, and as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. All government health agencies and programs, except military and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and all government education agencies and programs were under the jurisdiction of his subcommittee. Before his election to Congress, he served in the Illinois House of Representatives. Today, Mr. Porter, named by a magazine as one of Washington’s “top 50 lobbyists”, serves as a partner in the Washington, DC, law firm Hogan & Hartson. This interview focuses on John Porter’s thoughts about science. Read more >>

Star Wars Trilogy Premieres on DVD

Twentieth Century Fox released creator George Lucas's first three Star Wars movies, A New Hope (released as Star Wars in 1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983), today in the popular DVD format. Read more >>

John McCain

Sen. John McCain talked about abortion, altruism and Mother Teresa in my wide-ranging 1999 interview. Read more >>

Jack Germond

This 1999 interview was published in the Arizona Republic.

It’s easy to spot Jack Germond; most know him as the heavy, liberal columnist whose blunt insights were a regular feature on the lively television program, The McLaughlin Group. Read more >>

Lamar Alexander Lamar Alexander Emphasizes Individual Liberty

This 1999 interview with Lamar Alexander was published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Los Angeles Daily News, San Jose Mercury News, Arizona Republic, Bangor (Maine) Daily News, and the Casper (Wyoming) Star-Tribune.

Born in Blount County, Tennessee, Lamar Alexander was raised by his schoolteacher parents, who taught in Maryville and sent their son to public schools there. Read more >>

Prescription Drug Plans Buyer Beware

This 2000 interview was published in the Detroit News, Buffalo News, and Los Angeles Daily News.

Today’s seniors are at the center of a dramatic health care policy debate that has surprised political experts by becoming the focus of the 2000 presidential campaign. Read more >>

Measuring the Apollo Missions

This 2005 article was originally published on Box Office Mojo.

True story movie subjects—boxers, racehorses, serial killers, but not the first men on the moon—reflect the lack of Hollywood's hero worship for America's astronauts. But, Apollo 13, the movie, probably comes as close as the culture allows. Read more >>

Energy Conservation Examined

This 2000 article was published in the Detroit News, Birmingham News, Casper (Wyoming) Star-Tribune, Los Angeles Daily News and Buffalo News.

When President Bush unveiled his energy plan last month, environmentalists criticized the plan's failure to emphasize conservation. This raises the question of whether conservation can meet America's power needs. The evidence suggests that the notion is losing its luster. Read more >>

David Halberstam Affirmative actions from the "Children of God"

This 1998 article was published in the Los Angeles Daily News.

Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Halberstam, author of The Powers That Be and The Fifties, remains convinced that, in today’s world, ideas matter. Read more >>

Democrat Fundraising Democrats do the fundraising conga—but not with Playboy

This 2000 article was published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, San Jose Mercury News, and Buffalo News.

Hollywood has come out of the closet as a big bucks political donor. While business donations continue to dominate political fundraising, the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, and the flurry of affiliated parties, erases any doubt that Big Hollywood has joined Big Business in the effort to influence the men and women whose votes control the way they work. Read more >>

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