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Arts

• November 15 -- This Review Rated G for "Gosh, Where'd That Come From?"
Way too much information….

• October 12 -- Iovine's Odd Museum Piece
Julie Iovine on a proposed Army museum: "The United States Army has a lot on its plate these days. In Iraq, costs and casualties are mounting; back home, recruitment is dwindling."

• October 8 -- A "Saintly" Abortionist
Like abortion? Then you'll love "Vera Drake," Mike Leigh's new movie about an abortionist in '50s Britain: "[Actress Imelda] Staunton's physical performance keeps this saintly figure grounded and expands the character."

• October 1 -- Swift Boat Vets Anti-Kerry "Calumnies"
A.O. Scott reviews a pro-Kerry biopic and gets in a crack at the Swift Boat Veterans.

• September 23 -- Holden on to Left-Wing Dreams
Movie critic Stephen Holden again lauds a left-wing documentary: "They believe in a Marxist-leaning society whose workers put aside personal ambition for the greater good. They see globalization as the newest way that strong countries bully and prey on the weak while purporting to do good."

• September 15 -- Stanley Doubts Anti-Republican Discrimination in Hollywood
Are Republicans discriminated against in Hollywood? Alessandra Stanley doubts it: "If there is a blacklist, where is the sign-up sheet? There is no studio ban on Republicans, of course, but certain conservatives have been dining out for decades on what they describe as a Hollywood witch hunt."

• September 14 -- Movie Critic Takes on Reagan's "False Dawn"
Where did that come from?

• September 10 -- "Convincing Case" Made By Left-Wing Paranoids
Anita Gates reviews an obscure left-wing documentary playing in Manhattan's East Village, "Hijacking Catastrophe--9/11, Fear and the Selling of American Empire," and finds it makes a "convincing case." Its premise: Republicans want to take over the world.

• September 1 -- Beethoven, Anti-Bush Protester
Music critic Allan Kozinn takes in an anti-Republican "collaborative performance piece" in Manhattan and thought one classical piece fit right in: "Beethoven was an idealist who opposed tyranny, and in the context of a discussion about curtailed civil liberties, elective war and a striving toward empire--the subjects of several of the speeches--it seemed entirely at home."

• August 31 -- Selling Anti-Republican Art in Manhattan
More anti-Bush art projects: Critic Stephen Holden admires radical novelist E.L. Doctorow, while David Carr celebrates Bush-hating comedian Margaret Cho.

• August 27 -- Movie Critic's Urban Liberal Smugfest
Stephen Holden files two favorable, angry, indignant reviews of anti-Bush documentaries, one of which mocks pro-war Middle Americans: "Asked to express their opinions about the war in Iraq, the mostly unidentified subjects of this documentary polemic, 'This Ain't No Heartland,' are only too happy to make fools of themselves. Their fundamental ignorance of the facts, compounded by their disinterest in knowing more, doesn't prevent them from expressing strong opinions and conveying misinformation in bad grammar."

• August 23 -- Giving Bush an Art Attack
Three more stories celebrating anti-Bush art.

• August 17 -- Hocking Another Anti-Republican Art Project
Times contributor Edward Gomez files the latest bit of NYT PR for anti-Republican art.

• August 13 -- Times Trumpets an "Exhilarating" Evening of Bush-Hating
The Times pushes another anti-Bush art show: "Mr. Dykstra's exhilarating one-man show, which opened last night at the tiny Triad Theater on the Upper West Side, does more than call names." A few lines later, Dykstra comments: "I totally understand assassination now."

• August 5 -- Bored In The U.S.A.
"Writer and performer" Bruce Springsteen pens a rather bland op-ed about his beat-Bush concert tour that could have been cobbled from DNC talking points.

• August 5 -- Celebrating a "Joyous Cultural Pep Rally" for Lefties
What does Marxist playwright Tony Kushner have to do to get in the NYT? Just about anything.

• July 26 -- Hussein's Downfall "Disillusioning" for Iraqi Artists?
Jeffrey Gettleman looks at Iraqi artists: "The war in Iraq has been especially disillusioning for young Iraqi artists, many of whom believed the American promises of freedom."

• July 22 -- The Right's Latest Victim: Linda Ronstadt?
The Times engages in liberal hand-wringing over hostile audience reaction to Linda Ronstadt's in-concert tribute to Michael Moore, in an Arts story and an editorial (yes, an editorial).

• July 9 -- Rapping a Pro-Israel Musician
Ben Sisario attends an unusual hip-hop show in Brooklyn featuring Israelis and Palestinians rapping against the Israeli "occupation." A Palestinian rapper who describes the Israel army as terrorists is called "blunt;" a pro-Israel rapper describes Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat as a smoker and is said to spread "incendiary nationalist imagery."

• July 8 -- "Sensual" Stalinist Poet Neruda Embraced "Social Justice"
Carolyn Curiel pens a tribute to deceased Communist poet Pablo Neruda: "a sensual communist who loved nature almost as much as he loved women, food and wine.…for Neruda, love and beauty vied for attention with social justice." Curiel doesn't mention Neruda's other love: Stalin.

• June 24 -- The Right in Manhattan Culture? How Gauche
Is it wrong for conservatives to participate in Manhattan cultural life? That's the impression one gets from Robin Pogrebin's story on National Review senior editor Richard Brookhiser and fundraiser Richard Gilder.

• April 16 -- Portrait of the Artist as "Right-Wing Crank"
The Times, which generally eschews hard-edged criticism of art exhibitions, makes an exception for "right-wing crank" painter Thomas Hart Benton.

• February 18 -- The Bushies vs. Peace
Margo Jefferson reviews a production of socialist Bertolt Brecht's anti-war play "Mother Courage and Her Children" and suggests it has contemporary resonance: "…an army officer complains, 'Peace is one big waste of equipment.' These words sound contemporary."

• February 13 -- The Right's "Hysterical" NEA Critics
Former arts editor (and Hillary Clinton campaign donor) John Rockwell slams the NEA's "hysterical critics" and outlines the dangers of leaving culture funding up to rich conservatives.

• January 29 -- "Conservatives" vs. Democrats, Part XI
New topic, same labeling bias from reporter Robert Pear.

• January 7 -- WTC Site Dangers: Shopping, Patriotism
Herbert Muschamp sees danger to American culture if commerce is contracted or patriotism displayed at the World Trade Center site.

• January 2 -- Tolerance Takes the Subway; Pro-Bush Prejudice Hits the Road
Critic Roberta Smith's look at the "artistic underground" of the NYC subway system includes this snarky putdown of those narrow-minded Bush-voting denizens of the "Red" states: "I would say that large, active systems of mass transit are the main difference between the red and the blue states of the 2000 electoral map (California excepted). People who travel only by private car--most of America--can too easily stick to their own kind and cling to their prejudices and misconceptions without the threat of contradictory experiences."

• November 19 -- AIDS "Angels" vs. "Rancid" Reaganites
Editor Frank Rich pens a poisonous, 2,200-word excoriation of the Reagan administration's attitude toward AIDS in a hagiography of HBO's adaptation of the anti-Reagan gay advocacy play "Angels in America." Rich writes: "This epic is, among other things, a searing indictment of how the Reagan administration's long silence stoked the plague of AIDS in the 1980's....it accurately conveys the rancid hypocrisy among powerful closeted gay Republicans in Washington as AIDS spiraled."

• November 17 -- Portrait of the Artist as a Young Thug
A.O. Scott reviews a documentary of Tupac Shakur and gives a posthumous makeover to the "open-hearted" and "sensitive" rapper, who died as he lived--violently--in a drive-by assault in 1996.

• November 12 -- Dead Poets Society Takes Bush on Over Iraq
Adam Cohen salutes World War I poet Wilfred Owen in order to scorn Bush's conduct of the Iraq war: "Owen was right that an honorable approach to war requires both ably leading troops on the battlefield, and reporting honestly what occurs there. The Bush administration, however, is resisting this honorable approach….He avoids mentioning the American dead...”

• November 5 -- Britney, Weird
Neil Strauss' profile of Britney Spears is a doomed attempt to imbue the flighty pop singer with significance. Describing Spears stomping out of an interview, he writes: "It was a decision that took a degree of independence, confidence and honesty, which are all mature qualities." Huh?

• October 22 -- Times Bias Trickles Into Headlines
Jim Rutenberg delivers a balanced story on an upcoming CBS miniseries on the Reagan White House, but a smart-aleck headline writer couldn't resist a little Reagan-bashing.

• October 17 -- The Nixon Family Chainsaw Massacre
Republican-bashing in the screening room. Reviewing "Runaway Jury," Elvis Mitchell describes Gene Hackman as a slick jury consultant "who employs ruthless, pre-Miranda tactics generally seen on the Fox News channel." And Dave Kehr has an interesting angle on "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" sequel: "The original was a paranoid vision in which a band of hippies fell into the clutches of a monstrous family evolved from Richard Nixon's middle Americans."

• September 26 -- Ashcroft, Bush, and the Beatniks
Dean Murphy visits San Francisco’s famous beatnik bookstore, City Lights, and invests the aging pre-hippie bohemians with dissident allure: “Yet in the era of George W. Bush and John Ashcroft, the dissident Beat voices are enjoying a renaissance of sorts….”

• September 18 -- Libeskind’s Designs on Democracy
Architecture critic Herbert Muschamp again squeezes politics out of concrete and steel, seeing the proposed Ground Zero designs as a potential danger to free speech: “It is contrary for a place dedicated to democracy to start telling people what to think.”

• August 22 -- A Communist Photographer With a “Belief in Progress”
Times art critic Holland Carter fawns over a Milton Rogovin photography exhibit, noting the “politically engaged” Rogovin based his “work on a humanistic belief in progress.” Yet the elderly Rogovin was a Communist Party member and remained so even after Josef Stalin’s purges became common knowledge.

• August 20 -- This Story Rated “G” for Gaffe
Bernard Weinraub has been covering Hollywood for the Times since 1991, but his story on the PG-13 rating has a flaw a teen could pick out.

• August 19 -- Christianity in a Positive Light? Now That’s Offensive
Bruce Weber reviewed some of the outré offerings at the NYC Fringe Festival, and one show offended his sensibilities so much he walked out. Was it “Daddy Kathryn,” “a comedy about a gay son's wacky relationship with his newly outed transvestite father?” No. It was “Discordant Duets,” the one avowedly pro-Christian work in the festival. (Weber admitted the “born-again crowd” might like the “simple-minded drama.”)

• June 9 -- The Times’ Raw Journalism
Sarah Lyall’s “Barcelona Journal” is a unique example of hands-on (or clothes-off) journalism, as Lyall apparently joined in a photographer’s “unclad art project.”

• April 8 -- The Times Soap Box for an Anti-American Author
A profile of German author Gunter Grass gives the anti-American writer a forum for comparing George Bush to Osama Bin Laden: But the Times lets his nutty comments slip by.