The Mexican military trotted out Daniel Jesus Elizondo Ramírez or "El Loco," yesterday, to face the media. They accused the Zeta leader of directing the mutilation and beheading of 49 people.
The Kentucky Attorney General's Election Fraud Hotline is open from 6am until 7pm today, to accept calls about possible election fraud. The Office of the Attorney General, by law, cannot provide details regarding specific complaints or possible pending investigations. However, the Office has revealed that calls were received from four counties this morning.
An online auction of a vial said to contain blood drawn from President Reagan on the day he was shot in 1981 is "a craven act and we will use every legal means to stop its sale or purchase," says a spokesman for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation.
Whenever I think about Christopher Tilghman's writing — and I have many times since his atmospheric novel, Mason's Retreat, came out more than 15 years ago — I think of critic John Leonard. John, among many other distinctions, was my predecessor as book critic for Fresh Air and, every once in a while before his death in 2008, we'd have occasion to talk or exchange e-mails about books. I remember John sending me a note in 1996, in which he mentioned Mason's Retreat and said of Tilghman, "He's the real deal."
In 1935, George Gershwin brought the script for his folk opera Porgy and Bess to the opera's original cast, which was entirely made up of African-American actors. "[In the original], every other word was N-word this, N-word that," says actor David Alan Grier. "[And] there's a very famous story: Al Jolson really wanted to play Porgy, in blackface."
