Requiem for an Editor

(Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-il died of a heart attack while on a train trip, state media reported Monday, sparking immediate concern over who is in control of the reclusive state and its nuclear program. A tearful television announcer dressed in black said the 69-year old had died Saturday of physical and mental over-work on his way to give "field guidance." He had suffered a stroke in 2008, but appeared to have recovered. North Korea's official KCNA news agency said he died at 8:30 a.m. Saturday (6:30 p.m. EST on Friday) after "an advanced acute myocardial infarction, complicated with a serious heart shock." South Korea, still technically at war with the North, placed its troops and all government workers on emergency alert, Yonhap news agency reported. But Seoul's Defense Ministry said there were no signs of any unusual North Korean troop movements. "Up until tonight, if anybody had asked you what would be the most likely scenario...

Controversial journalist Christopher Hitchens has finally succumbed to cancer of the esophagus. I will miss his work, but I still have more than half his memoir to relish. And I have the memory of my one phone call to him. Early in my editorial career, I was a managing editor working for a subsidiary of  Penthouse  magazine; I worked on three pubs, actually:  Penthouse Letters  and  Penthouse Forum  (I was a senior editor on both mastheads), and  Penthouse Hot Talk  (of which I was the managing editor). We never had to trouble ourselves with the "dirty" stuff -- we simply ran the photographs that  Penthouse , for whatever reason, had rejected. If you've ever seen  Hot Talk  (henceforth to be referred to as  HT) , you'd never imagine they were "rejects." Bob Guccione made the final selections, so I suppose that women who didn't conform with his opinion of beauty were thrown in the "recycle" pile. General Media, the paren...

No one would argue that New York City is simply not the same city it was back during the 1970s to 1980s, and the results are good, crime wise, although there is something a bit boring and antiseptic about the city today. In a Salon.com book review there is a theory put forth explaining how this change happened -- and the book will surprise you. The New York of the film "Death Wish" is today a city out of Disneyland, if you ask me. "In the 1970s, ’80s and early ’90s, New York was viewed as one of the world’s most dangerous metropolises — a cesspool of violence and danger depicted in gritty films like 'The Warriors' and 'Escape From New York.' Friends who lived here during that time talk of being terrified to use the subway, of being mugged outside their apartments, and an overwhelming tide of junkies. Thirty-one one of every 100,000 New Yorkers were murdered each year, and 3,668 were victims of larceny," the story says. "Today, in an aston...

The German city of Hanover was bombed to utter ruin in 1943. During 1944, many other cities in the Third Reich met the same, or worse, fate. In a SPIEGEL interview , the best-selling British historian Ian Kershaw talks about the last days of the Third Reich, why the Germans persevered when it was clear that all was lost and the devastating consequences of the failed July 20, 1944, attempt to assassinate Hitler. SPIEGEL:  Professor Kershaw, you have spent the last three years studying the collapse of Nazi Germany. In the end, are we left to shake our heads in amazement at the absurdity of the final phase, or do you, as a historian, also feel something akin to admiration for the perseverance of the Germans? Kershaw: The head-shaking predominates, at any rate. I'm convinced that we English would have given up much earlier. It's certainly unusual for a country to continue fighting to the point of complete self-destruction. It's the sort of thing we usu...

"You may want to consider donning a pair of quality hip waders before delving into the latest Casey Anthony article in the National Enquirer , according to her lawyer," reports  The Huffington Post . "None of it is true," Anthony attorney Jose Baez told the website. The article in question, "Casey Anthony Survives Assassination Attempt," appears in the tabloid's latest issue . The Enquirer reports that someone found 25-year-old Anthony's secret hideout in Florida and placed on her door a threatening note that read, "I know where you are, I'm coming to put a bullet through your brain." See related post here .

Everyone’s A Vampire From The Civil War - 2 - The Superficial : A photograph of a man from the 1860s that resembles  John Travolta and/or proves he's one of those time-traveling vampires.

Will World War 2 ever end? Probably never. Every day new information surfaces, revelations espoused, holes filled. Now we see another high-profile consumer goods company stepping forward, hat in hand. This one, Hugo Boss, which "has released a formal apology for outfitting Nazi soldiers during World War II," reports  Entertainment News . In the new book, Hugo Boss, 1924-1945: The History of a Clothing Factory During the Weimar Republic and Third Reich , author Roman Koester reveals the fashion house’s "historical activity, explaining that the company is responsible for clothing countless Nazis." Hugo Ferdinand Boss, founder of the company, which he created in 1924, "never denied having provided millions of Nazi soldiers with uniforms. He maintained, however, that he only did so to 'protect his business from bankruptcy.' The book--financed by Hugo Boss itself, aiming to add 'clarity and objectivity to the discussion'--reveals the d...