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Holland was once known for its freedom, not its fanatics. It was seen as a kindly oasis in an unkind world, famous as a fair, broadminded country, a tolerant land where anyone could speak his mind without fear of retribution or the midnight knock on the door. Not now. Not after the assassination in 2002 of Pim Fortuyn, an outspoken opponent of Holland’s ruling multicultural orthodoxy. That wild, extravagant aristocrat was demonized by the political establishment, denied (some say) proper police protection, and, finally, gunned down in the street. Tolerant? Not after the slaughter in Amsterdam last November of another [...]
Yelling Stop: Geert Wilders, who lives in a prison, tries to save Holland
April 25, 2005
The best thing that can be said about the new American “adaptation” of “Fever Pitch” that opens this week is that its directors – the usually reliable Farrelly brothers – knew that doing justice to Nick Hornby’s morosely funny memoir was beyond them. Instead, they borrowed, then watered down, his sports-obsessed persona, added elements of the romance thrown into the English film of the book, and moved the whole thing to Beantown. Dour, dull, relentless Arsenal and its terrifying fans of 20 years ago, a horde out of Peckinpah, are transformed into Capra cornpone: the feisty, loveable Red Sox, and [...]
There’s Nothing About Drew
April 8, 2005
Fever Pitch; published originally in The New York Sun