Category: Featured Articles
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Post Mortem: OPPENHEIMER
Oppenheimer and the Legacy of Genius An essay by John Burke *** “(They need us) … until they don’t.” – J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) *** Any scientists involved in any kind of significant break-through would do well to be mindful of the above quote. Probably all creative innovators have felt the sting of this […] Read More
LOSING THE MESSAGE
Scrooge: A Christmas Carol (2022) *** Movie mogul Samuel Goldman reportedly once said, “If ya wanna send a message, use Western Union.” (1) But despite Samuel Goldman’s misgivings, many authors do set out to deliver a message in their work, sometimes to great effect. Certainly, Dickens’s A Christmas Carol is one of those […] Read More
Post Mortem: DON’T LOOK UP
Don’t Look Up and the Impotence of Today’s Political Satire (An essay by John Burke, January 15, 2022) *** There’s an odd phrase that comes from a religious context that states one shouldn’t preach to the choir. Historically, organizations like the Roman Catholic Church took that premise to the ridiculous extreme. To follow the Judaeo-Christian […] Read More
ONCE UPON A TIME IN … WTF?
(An essay by John Burke, August 21, 2019) *** No one would be surprised to learn that Hollywood films have a problematic relationship with violence. Such violence is so ubiquitous it hardly bears mentioning any more. Of late, there has been an emerging trend in cinematic violence that seems to be both deliberate and disturbing. […] Read More