Re-reading Clifford Stoll’s 1995 Internet predictions: Bah!
Clifford Stoll’s 1995 newsmagazine critique of the emergent Internet is a digital classic, an off-target artifact that is constantly being rediscovered, and scoffed at, online. Few essays published in 1995 … Continue reading
Remembering Bill Clinton’s finger-wagging denial-lie, 20 years on
His eyes were narrowed, his face flushed. He wagged an index finger for emphasis and he nearly spat the words as television cameras rolled: “I want to say one thing … Continue reading
HLN’s oddly timed Clinton-Lewinsky rehash notable for what it left out
HLN’s two-hour look-back last night at the President Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal was notable for what it left out. And for its peculiar timing. Consider first the timing: Given the recent … Continue reading
‘Just because I could’: Would Bill Clinton survive Lewinsky scandal these days? Not likely
Counterfactual history can be little more than trivial nonsense. Take, for example, the Washington Post’s frivolous, “let’s pretend” story last week ruminating about what if Hillary Clinton had won the presidency. … Continue reading
The 15 ‘most influential’ Web sites? A third of them date to 1995
Sure, lists about the “most important this” or the “most fun that” tend to be inane. And eye-rolling in their contrivance. But Time magazine’s recent compilation of the “15 most … Continue reading
Ick alert? TV dramatizations of Clinton-Lewinsky scandal airing or in works
More than 20 years after it ended, the scandalous affair of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky still fascinates, still strangely exerts a hold on popular culture. How otherwise to explain … Continue reading
CNN series gives kitchen-sink treatment to the ’90s
Call it the kitchen-sink approach to documentary-making. That’s an effective summation of the seven-part, eight-hour CNN series, “The Nineties,” which wrapped up last night with a jumbled look at the … Continue reading
O.J. Simpson wins parole, but it’s no 1995 moment
O.J. Simpson’s parole hearing today in Nevada may have been widely watched and much-anticipated. But it was no “flashbulb moment,” not an occasion so rare and powerful that it will … Continue reading
No cause for cheer if O.J. Simpson wins parole
If he is paroled, it will be no cause for cheer. Expectations are that O.J. Simpson — former football star, erstwhile celebrity, and now aging felon — will win parole … Continue reading
Messaging, sequencing a puzzle as CNN launches ’90s series
It’s certainly commendable that the 1990s — a decade Americans too often treat casually or dismissively — is receiving extended attention from CNN, in a seven-part documentary series that premieres … Continue reading
