Nervous Breakdown

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court turned aside yesterday the appeal of a former Baltimore banker who claimed that he was driven to a nervous breakdown by being forced to arrange arms purchases he thought were illegal for a "front" company of the Central Intelligence Agency.Without comment, the court voted to leave intact a decision by U.S. District Judge William N. Nickerson of Baltimore, who threw out the lawsuit of the ex-banker, Robert J. Maxwell, because of the CIA's concern that secrets might be compromised.

Comedian Jon Stewart lied when he said that "every poll" shows Fox News viewers to be the most "consistently misnformed" of all news consumers, PolitiFact says. Stewart made that claim in an interview on "Fox News Sunday" with Chris Wallace that is still be debated all over the place two days later. I have been dragged into the fray in part because Wallace used a quote from me to challenge Stewart about his lack of accountability as a media critic. You can read about that and see the Fox News video here . I applaud PolitiFact, ans its Pulitzer-Prize-winning truth-o-meter, for holding Stewart accountable for his false statement about Fox. By the way, in its well-researched and thoughtful analysis of what constitutes true and false statements about news audiences being poorly or well-informed, PolitiFact quotes my analysis of a deeply flawed University of Maryland "study" on the matter.

Comedian Jon Stewart lied when he said that "every poll" shows Fox News viewers to be the most "consistently misnformed" of all news consumers, PolitiFact says. Stewart made that claim in an interview on "Fox News Sunday" with Chris Wallace that is still be debated all over the place two days later. I have been dragged into the fray in part because Wallace used a quote from me to challenge Stewart about his lack of accountability as a media critic. You can read about that and see the Fox News video here . I applaud PolitiFact, ans its Pulitzer-Prize-winning truth-o-meter, for holding Stewart accountable for his false statement about Fox. By the way, in its well-researched and thoughtful analysis of what constitutes true and false statements about news audiences being poorly or well-informed, PolitiFact quotes my analysis of a deeply flawed University of Maryland "study" on the matter.

The opening sequence is visually stunning and ultimately horrifying. It includes a scruffy, middle-aged man rushing through a field abloom in golden blossoms. For a sense of the field, think of the feature film Everything is Illuminated. Only everything here is ominous, as the camera shows him running toward a teenage girl standing in the middle of the sea of gold who is holding what looks like a plastic jug of gasoline. As he waves his badge and screams for her to stop, the girl raises the jug over her head and starts to douse herself with the petrol.

SUN SCORE ** After seeing Pedro Almodovar's Bad Education, fans of Almodovar's Matador (1986), Law of Desire (1987) and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) may feel as out of it as the space aliens in Woody Allen's Stardust Memories, who said they preferred Allen's "early, funny films." Almodovar can be an inspired wiseacre with a virtuoso control of physical and psychological slapstick. But instead of men on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Almodovar here gives us heavy-breathing psychological striptease - a transvestite dance of seven veils.

One of the great tag lines of the first year of Saturday Night Live was Chevy Chase proclaiming on "Weekend Update," "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead!" (He died in 1975.) In a sense, that's what Pedro Almodovar was proclaiming throughout his early movies. Expressing the liberty his countrymen felt after the demise of Franco and his dictatorship, Almodovar told Variety's Madrid bureau chief, Peter Besas, "The characters in my films utterly break with the past." He continued, "Pleasure must be grasped immediately, almost hedonistically.

Should we read the letters of a literary hero?True, new breadth and depths of character make the heart flutter, but oh, the pain when our image of the one we adore is tarnished by his own hand.The 428 letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald stir these conflicting emotions and more in a new selection edited and annotated by Matthew J. Bruccoli, noted Fitzgerald scholar and biographer.Fitzgerald's wit delights, his writing dazzles, his genuine humility comes as a sweet surprise, so much so that even when this ultimate sophisticate of the Jazz Age emerges in the tatters of self-pity, his letters send us to the bookshelves.

What if this wonderful NFL exhibition doesn't sell out in five seconds flat? Does Baltimore have a nervous breakdown? Does Robert Irsay proclaim, "See, I was right!"The NFL would never pose those questions in such harsh terms, but it's responsible for tomorrow's demeaning little exercise, in which ordinary citizens turn into circus animals who leap on command.Heaven help the expansion hopeful that won't play along. Even if the price is $25 per ticket. In the middle of a recession. For a meaningless game.

"What I Lived For" is a novel that, by its own bravado and conceits, first soars and then plummets. I was utterly taken by the first hundred pages, only to yearn for the book to come to a merciful conclusion. This was one frustrating book.It is a novel about an Irish-American pol in upstate New York named Jerome "Corky" Corcoran. When Corky was 11 -- "a scrawny undersized kid" -- his father was gunned down at the doorstep of their posh home on Christmas Eve, 1959.Tim Corcoran had been a brawling, blustering owner of a construction business in Union City, a heavily ethnic industrial city that sounds a lot like Buffalo.

The tension was almost unbearable. Emotionally, you go from the lowest lows to the highest highs and back again, howling and cursing at a glowing 19-inch monitor, palms sweating, wondering why you put yourself through all this. That's right, I just made my first buy on eBay. How do I feel? I'll tell you how I feel. I feel like I need a drink. And it's only 10 in the morning. The item purchased, by the way, was a gently used 460-cc Nike driver. I was looking for a new driver because, like many other golfers, I am delusional.

One of the great tag lines of the first year of Saturday Night Live was Chevy Chase proclaiming on "Weekend Update," "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead!" (He died in 1975.) In a sense, that's what Pedro Almodovar was proclaiming throughout his early movies. Expressing the liberty his countrymen felt after the demise of Franco and his dictatorship, Almodovar told Variety's Madrid bureau chief, Peter Besas, "The characters in my films utterly break with the past." He continued, "Pleasure must be grasped immediately, almost hedonistically.

The tension was almost unbearable. Emotionally, you go from the lowest lows to the highest highs and back again, howling and cursing at a glowing 19-inch monitor, palms sweating, wondering why you put yourself through all this. That's right, I just made my first buy on eBay. How do I feel? I'll tell you how I feel. I feel like I need a drink. And it's only 10 in the morning. The item purchased, by the way, was a gently used 460-cc Nike driver. I was looking for a new driver because, like many other golfers, I am delusional.

SUN SCORE ** After seeing Pedro Almodovar's Bad Education, fans of Almodovar's Matador (1986), Law of Desire (1987) and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) may feel as out of it as the space aliens in Woody Allen's Stardust Memories, who said they preferred Allen's "early, funny films." Almodovar can be an inspired wiseacre with a virtuoso control of physical and psychological slapstick. But instead of men on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Almodovar here gives us heavy-breathing psychological striptease - a transvestite dance of seven veils.

The guy with the voice you love to hate has a date at the Baltimore Improv. That's right, comedian-actor Bobcat Goldthwait will be doing his stand-up thing at the city's premier comedy club, tomorrow through Sunday. A veteran of late-night talk shows, HBO specials and numerous Hollywood movies (Police Academy 2, 3 and 4 and Shakes the Clown), Goldthwait has been compared to "everyone from Lenny Bruce to a Warner Bros. cartoon character on the verge of a nervous breakdown" (according to his publicity bio)

I'm worried, Tony," Carmela Soprano says near the start of tonight's season premiere of the greatest show on American television, HBO's The Sopranos. "About what -- my weight?" Tony responds distractedly as he scoops a spoonful of chocolate sundae into his mouth. "About money," says his wife, set to launch into a speech about economic uncertainty versus certain mortality that seems just the thing a guy given to panic attacks doesn't need to hear as he's sitting down to relax with a bowl of ice cream in front of the tube to watch a western starring Dean Martin.

"What I Lived For" is a novel that, by its own bravado and conceits, first soars and then plummets. I was utterly taken by the first hundred pages, only to yearn for the book to come to a merciful conclusion. This was one frustrating book.It is a novel about an Irish-American pol in upstate New York named Jerome "Corky" Corcoran. When Corky was 11 -- "a scrawny undersized kid" -- his father was gunned down at the doorstep of their posh home on Christmas Eve, 1959.Tim Corcoran had been a brawling, blustering owner of a construction business in Union City, a heavily ethnic industrial city that sounds a lot like Buffalo.

The guy with the voice you love to hate has a date at the Baltimore Improv. That's right, comedian-actor Bobcat Goldthwait will be doing his stand-up thing at the city's premier comedy club, tomorrow through Sunday. A veteran of late-night talk shows, HBO specials and numerous Hollywood movies (Police Academy 2, 3 and 4 and Shakes the Clown), Goldthwait has been compared to "everyone from Lenny Bruce to a Warner Bros. cartoon character on the verge of a nervous breakdown" (according to his publicity bio)

The opening sequence is visually stunning and ultimately horrifying. It includes a scruffy, middle-aged man rushing through a field abloom in golden blossoms. For a sense of the field, think of the feature film Everything is Illuminated. Only everything here is ominous, as the camera shows him running toward a teenage girl standing in the middle of the sea of gold who is holding what looks like a plastic jug of gasoline. As he waves his badge and screams for her to stop, the girl raises the jug over her head and starts to douse herself with the petrol.

Should we read the letters of a literary hero?True, new breadth and depths of character make the heart flutter, but oh, the pain when our image of the one we adore is tarnished by his own hand.The 428 letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald stir these conflicting emotions and more in a new selection edited and annotated by Matthew J. Bruccoli, noted Fitzgerald scholar and biographer.Fitzgerald's wit delights, his writing dazzles, his genuine humility comes as a sweet surprise, so much so that even when this ultimate sophisticate of the Jazz Age emerges in the tatters of self-pity, his letters send us to the bookshelves.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court turned aside yesterday the appeal of a former Baltimore banker who claimed that he was driven to a nervous breakdown by being forced to arrange arms purchases he thought were illegal for a "front" company of the Central Intelligence Agency.Without comment, the court voted to leave intact a decision by U.S. District Judge William N. Nickerson of Baltimore, who threw out the lawsuit of the ex-banker, Robert J. Maxwell, because of the CIA's concern that secrets might be compromised.