slate

  • Slate has an excellent five-part article on the backstory behind the Ricci v. DeStafano case that the Supreme Court is expected to rule on this Monday. This is the one about the city of New Haven throwing out a firefighter exam because it would've ended up denying promotion to every African-American that took it, likely a Title VII violation -- and the one that Sonia Sotomayor was criticized for ruling on the side of the city with no explanation. A fascinating article, and one that makes it clear (at least to me) that while the situation was hairy for the plaintiffs, it was a fairly clear-cut case for a circuit court. (Of course, the Supreme Court is a different matter, and has more free reign in overturning precedent.) (16) #
    6/25/2009
  • Slate has an interesting video slide show of the evolution of the cinematic fight scene. I share much of the sentiments of the writer, who isn't fond of the "drunken-camera" style that has emerged in the past decade or so, although I've grown tolerant of it out of necessity. (2) #
    7/28/2008
  • Many of you wondered what the point was of Error Morris's 25,000-word trilogy of blog posts about two 1855 Roger Fenton photographs. Jim Lewis at Slate wonders as well, but in the process shows his appreciation of Morris's blog opus.
    [I]t's a very charming and enjoyable journey, with all sorts of hypotheses entertained, and computer analyses, and a great deal of slightly neurotic second-guessing and self-doubt. It's a shaggy-dog story, a monumental procedural in which it's revealed, at the very end, that the butler did it after all.
    (14) #
    11/1/2007
  • Six or so years back when I was running the film organization at Tufts University, we used to put up fake slideshows that spoofed the boring corporate factoids one is subjected to these days in the movie theater. Slate has stolen our idea. (12) #
    8/8/2006
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