School administrators’ association censors conference exhibit critical of corporation

School administrators’ association censors conference exhibit critical of corporation

April 21, 2011 – Businessweek censored? A press release by the New York Attorney General censored? And by the organization that represents the nation’s school superintendents and principals!

Why would the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) ban letters from legislators and government officials as well as articles in several newspapers from a display table at its February National Conference on Education at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver? Thereby hangs a corporate tale.

The AASA didn’t ban the documents over the usual culture wars issues. It was to thwart distribution of training materials on how schools can avoid being ripped off by companies that provide school meals. The papers were stacked on a paid exhibit table that had been set up by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which represents food service workers. SEIU had also bought the right to run a workshop.

“Benefactors” is Michael Frayn’s wry look at good intentions gone bad

Benefactors begins in 1968, during an era when England was building controversial housing projects. It was written in 1984 by Michael Frayn, who two decades later authored Democracy, the powerful recreation of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt’s early 70s dealings with East Germany. In both cases, in overlapping eras, the personal becomes political, and there is a strong ideological message that expresses Frayn’s general concern about democracy, writ small and writ large.

“Driving Miss Daisy” is tour de force for Redgrave and Jones

Alfred Uhry’s charming, moving play is part of his Atlanta trilogy about Southern Jews in the middle decades of the last century. Through the conflict and then growing warmth between an elderly middle-class white woman and a middle-aged working-class black man, one gets a sense of how human contact can break or at least crack the barriers of color and class. The production is tour de force for Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones.

Russian Deputy PM says 1,000 Russian banks are money-launderers

Russian Deputy PM says 1,000 Russian banks are money-launderers

April 4, 2011 –

Sergey Ivanov, the Russian deputy prime minister, spoke at a Council on Foreign Relations lunch today. I asked if he thought the U.S. and Russia should get together to put a stop to offshore tax evasion. He smiled and agreed that the two countries need to deal with the international offshore system. That was something to consider in the future. And then he said, There are more than 1,000 banks in Russia. They are not banks but launderers.

“The Whipping Man” a potboiler about slavery and a Jewish family in 1860s Richmond

This is an unlikely melodramatic potboiler about American slavery and a Jewish family in Richmond, Va., that turned its slaves into believers. It’s an unlikely premise in spite of historical documentation, but you no sooner get to the point of accepting one unlikely premise, than playwright Matthew Lopez throws you another. The play is full of action and mystery, secrets and surprises, but is somehow unsatisfying.