Louis Proyect

  • World mourns two music giants

    African-American jazz legend Benny Carter died on July 12, at the age of 95. Two days later, Afro-Cuban musician Compay Segundo, of Buena Vista Social Club fame, died — he too was 95. They both remained active musically into

  • A minority report on Minority Report

    Although Stephen Spielberg emerged side-by-side with George Lucas as a purveyor of juvenile film fantasies during the Reagan era, he has evolved into one of the more important social commentators in Hollywood.

  • Stephen Jay Gould fought to liberate science

    NEW YORK — Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould died on May 20 of cancer at the age of 60. Not only was he the best known scientist in the United States, he was a committed progressive who served on the advisory board of the Brecht

  • Making fun of war culture

    Small SoldiersDirected by Joe DanteDreamworks SKGAvailable from most video shops Stephen Spielberg was involved with one solid antiwar film in 1998. That film was Dreamworks' Small Soldiers, not the flag-waving Saving Private Ryan.

  • Andy Warhol's peculiar brand of subversion

    Andy Warhol's peculiar brand of subversionWhen Andy Warhol moved to New York City in 1958 after graduating from the Carnegie Art Institute (now part of Carnegie-Mellon) in Pittsburgh, he knew that abstract expressionism had no

  • Chimps, AIDS and the environment

    Chimps, AIDS and the environmentIn the February 1 New York Times, Lawrence K. Altman reported that scientists have discovered the origin of the AIDS virus in a subspecies of chimpanzee called Pan troglodytes troglodytes. The