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used parts 

The Year in Culture 

Stanley Crouch, author, The Artificial White Man and Considering Genius: Writings on Jazz
As we are all aware, the technology of films has never been more convincing, but the human content seems to diminish with every advance in duping techniques. That is why I was absolutely startled by Little Children. It focuses on humanity as the most marvelous of all narrative enhancements and has in Kate Winslet an actress of classical cinematic greatness.

They start off with some guy who was dissappointed in the demotion of Pluto from being a real planet which in itself was almost enough to keep me from reading the rest. Pluto’s feelings were not hurt, it will keep orbiting our sun I promise.

Among the more serious and note worthy,

Azar Nafisi, author, Reading Lolita in Tehran
I can name a few amazing, as well as a number of disappointing, cultural events for 2006, but none can match my sense of outrage at the so-called Holocaust conference convened by the Iranian government. I felt outraged as a human being, because, like all the great human catastrophes, the Holocaust transcends its own time and place, concerning not just the Jews and those who tried to eliminate them but the rest of mankind, and when we deny it or remain silent about it, when we manipulate it for political purposes, we become complicit in the assault not only against the actual victims but against all that goes by the name humane.

While I think that Iran’s leaders as opposed to its general population talk a lot of smack just to piss off the west, even as far as propaganda goes Holocaust denial went to the deepest and darkest of places and it will come back to haunt them.

While you’re over at Slate reading the rest and making your own mental list of the cultural highs and lows of the past year this is also worth a read , Why Pardoning Nixon Was Wrong Ignore the cost-free magnanimity of Ford’s rehabilitators. You had it right the first time. 

No new information has emerged during the past 32 years that makes Ford’s pardon to Nixon look any more justifiable; indeed, what facts have dribbled forth make it seem less so. (More on these later.) Nor can the pardon plausibly be considered an example of the bipartisan spirit for which Ford is justly, if too extravagantly, praised by Washington insiders. The pardon may have had the long-term effect of tamping down partisan warfare between Democrats and Republicans over a possible criminal trial (obstruction of justice would have been the likeliest charge), but when a Republican short-circuits prosecution of a fellow Republican, you can’t call that bipartisanship.