 The following "ON" columns by John Powers are listed by date, with the most recent on top. Below them you'll find links to radio commentaries by John Powers from NPR's "Fresh Air" radio show.   John Powers' "ON" Column"An essential read" — The Los Angeles Times The following "ON" columns were first published in LA Weekly. The Mortal Storm [April 15, 2005] — These are heady days to be an obituary writer. Ever since America’s best-known critic, Susan Sontag, died in late December, there’s been a startling slew of Important Deaths. The greatest talk-show host, Johnny Carson. The most famous playwright, Arthur Miller. The most gonzo journalist, Hunter S. Thompson. The most legendary diplomat, George F. Kennan. The most lavishly celebrated novelist, Saul Bellow. The most career-savvy (and politically reprehensible) architect, Philip Johnson. The most irrelevant monarch, Prince Rainier. Not to mention the most infallible pope — at least until the next one. So many big names have passed away so quickly that people have taken to joking about it. When The Daily Show flashed an image of Fidel Castro honoring John Paul II, Jon Stewart’s comment was, “He’s next.” March Madness [April 1, 2005] — In Hong Kong last week, I found myself reading the local edition of the China Daily, a newspaper so deep in the pocket of Beijing’s party bosses that it appears to be printed on lint. The merest glance at its eerily upbeat headlines — “Hero Worker Helps Change Attitudes,” “Migrant Workers Face Less Prejudice,” “Army Marches on Satisfied Stomach” — provided a useful reminder of what it means not to have a free press. The paper was so soul-numbingly dull (no Michael Jackson!) that I began to yearn for the crass hysteria of the American media. The Other Texan [March 11, 2005] — One torrid July afternoon during the 1988 Democratic convention, I was covering a Jesse Jackson rally in Atlanta’s Piedmont Park — as ever, the good reverend was running late. Suddenly, the crowd began buzzing behind me. I turned around, expecting to see Jackson sauntering in like a pop star. Instead, there stood Dan Rather looking exactly like, well, Dan Rather. Except for one thing. He was smaller in the flesh than he was in my head. Terminator Genes [February 18, 2005] — Having evidently missed all the coverage of the 2003 recall, last Sunday’s New York Times ran a story on how Arnold Schwarzenegger promotes his politics the same way he did The Terminator. Modest as ever, Duh Gubna was eager to share his crowd-pleasing secrets — how he trained himself to appear "real" in public, always stayed on message and wasn’t afraid to repeat the same phrases every time. A Vision of Our Own [January 21, 2005] — In The Natural: The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill Clinton, Joe Klein tells the story of Newt Gingrich, then speaker of the House, listening to a pre-Monica State of the Union address. As the Man From Hope effortlessly dominated the chamber — in part by appropriating conservative ideas as a cannibal might eat the biceps of his strongest rival — Gingrich found himself thinking, "We’re dead. There’s no way we’re going to beat this guy." A Drop In The Ocean [January 7, 2005] — TV may not have a clue how to cover the death of a famous intellectual, but an epochal tsunami sure makes it feel right at home. Within hours of last week’s calamity in Asia, the cable networks had already launched into megadeath overkill. CNN gave its coverage the tag line "Tsunami Disaster" (replacing its initial attempt, "Asia Tsunami," which sounded more like a porn actress than a catastrophe). The List 2004 [December 24, 2004] — 10. The End Is Endlessly Nigh. When Janet Jackson’s bare breast made its special guest appearance at the Super Bowl, the postgame-hysteria made you understand why H.L. Mencken coined the term "booboisie." Viktor vs. Viktor, Live From Independence Square [Decemebr 3, 2004] — If television relishes anything more than a high-speed car chase, it’s a churning mass of humanity. The networks spent 10 days replaying footage of Ron Artest’s two-fisted foray into the Detroit Pistons’ drunken fan base. Such a brawl made great TV, but about the 10th time you saw it, the whole episode started to seem like a fiendish parody of the invasion of Iraq: Attack the wrong guy and you unleash big, big trouble. Right-Wing Political Correctness [November 19, 2004] — When the jury reached its verdict in the Scott Peterson trial — any fertilizer salesman with that many hairstyles had to be guilty — you could hear the cable-news honchos cheering all the way from Redwood City. After months of the same old Laci-Scott-Amber triangulation, the story got a new angle. Finally, some must-see TV. Something Wicked [November 5, 2004] — Although I can’t tell you the exact time — it was after I decided that Wolf Blitzer should be hung by his beard, but before Fox News (again!) became the first network to call the decisive state for Bush — I remember thinking that the lesson of the 2004 campaign was rather simple. In a polarized country fraught with fear, the electorate will ultimately vote for something rather than nothing. Monkeys and Marionettes — Stewart vs. Crossfire and other comic battles [October 22, 2004] — The striking thing about Jon Stewart’s slash-and-burn appearance on CNN’s Crossfire wasn’t that he accused the show of “hurting America,” dubbed hosts Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson “partisan hacks,” or wound up calling Carlson a “dick” (talk about your Flaubertian mot juste). It was that the program instantly became the stuff of pop legend. The show had barely ended before friends began calling to ask if I had it on tape and bloggers started posting transcripts; by Monday, even the Los Angeles Times had noticed, devoting a story to how America’s favorite fake newsman had raised a ruckus by not being funny.  read full columnDesperadoes — Going mad inside the debate bubble [October 15, 2004] — Halfway into last Sunday night’s episode of ABC’s campy Desperate Housewives — which had the trained ecstatics at Entertainment Weekly crying “Hosanna!” before the second episode even aired — Teri Hatcher’s character, Susan, made a catty joke about her trampy rival, Edie, to the local busybody. “Oh, Susan,” Mrs. Huber replied with cheery malice, “Edie may be trash, but she’s still a human being.” read full columnRise of the Anti-Machine [October 10, 2004] — From the moment an ebullient Arnold Schwarzenegger took over the microphone from mirth-challenged Jay Leno — now here were two jaws you could use to crush boulders — you saw instantly why he’d won such a smashing victory. Strutting confidently and grinning with pleasure more genuine than any he’d shown in the previous eight weeks, Duh Guvenuh radiated the qualities to which Californians feel entitled: star power, optimism and fun. read full columnKitty Galore — The Bush Dynasty and media hypocrites [September 24, 2004] — Being every bit as low-minded as the next media whore, I raced through Kitty Kelley’s The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty in search of the nasty factoids that Kelley always serves up like so many canapés. Who wouldn’t love the idea that, back in college, Laura Bush was “the go-to girl for dime bags of marijuana”? It explains that gaga smile. read full columnThe Day of the Jackals — Mythmaking at the Republican Convention and Getting Punk’d on Kudlow and Cramer [September 10, 2004] — “These are dark times,” declared MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough during last week’s Republican convention. I knew what he meant. After all, we live in an era when even a sweaty reactionary like Scarborough — imagine George Wallace impersonating John Wayne — gets to host his own show on national TV. Of course, in evoking this age of darkness, he was hoping to defend Dick Cheney. Although countless Americans find our vice president ominous, Scarborough argued, they still want our own Darth Vader to defeat death-worshipping terrorists who shoot fleeing children in the back. read full columnGOP Action Heroes — Arnold, Rudy, John McCain and the Bush twins [September 3, 2004] — NEW YORK — I’ve always wondered what Paris was like during the Occupation, and being in Manhattan this week may be the closest I’ll ever come to finding out. The streets are eerily depopulated, the security apparatus is inescapable — cops stand guard both outside and inside my hotel — and the locals often behave as if they belong to some imaginary, whimsical underground. When I joked about the Republican invasion to the bellboy, his obligatory surliness melted and he gave me a Gallic shrug then a sly, complicit smile. Vive la résistance! read full column
Jingo Bells— Prime-time pride, manly girls vs. girly girls and fear of a black dream team
[August 20, 2004] — Like millions of Americans, my wife and I watched raptly as Paul Hamm battled back from his calamitous tumble to heroically win, er, be mistakenly awarded the gold medal as best all-around male gymnast. But just as gushy Tim Daggett declared this victory the greatest single sports-viewing moment of his whole life — this week, anyway — NBC posted the final results. “Hey,” Sandi yelped, “who’s that guy who finished fifth?” read full columnShovin’ It — Hardballers and Class Warriors
Paranoia Strikes Deep — As The Manchurian Candidate creeps back into our lives
[July 30, 2004] — I’ve spent the last few months dreading The Manchurian Candidate, Jonathan Demme’s remake of the outrageous political satire that was shunned by audiences back in 1962 but has been celebrated by critics ever since. John Frankenheimer’s original was one of the most bracingly inventive American movies of the last 50 years, a witches’ brew of Cold War paranoia, Freudian camp, hipster absurdism and a nihilism so subversive that it spooked even the film’s star, Frank Sinatra, who helped keep it in the vault for nearly a quarter-century following its initial release. It would be impossible to recapture such far-out audacity, and Demme wisely doesn’t try. read full reviewBush’s Big Number Two — What’s the Matter With Cheney? |
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