Your homework assignment

A couple of things from the paper I would recommend to my readers (none of them all that schlubby -- but, hey, it's my blog so I'll recommend what I want!):

The biggest story this week (and last week), of course, has been the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme that has swallowed an estimated $50 billion.

The Times has a truly fabulous story on page one by Christine Haughney about how the Madoff scandal is effecting New York real estate. (The kind of story you read and say, "Gee... I wish I had written that.") People who were invested with the guy are already having to put their apartments on the market because their mortgage payments were tied up to Madoff investments. Moreover, a great deal of development will be unable to move forward. Definitely worth a read.

Speaking of Bernie Madoff, this is one of those times I really wish I was back at the Forward (and it might be the only time I wish I had the Jewish philanthropy beat -- which I can testify is a very boring beat). Because this week we really might have seen the death of Jewish Philanthropy. Anthony Weiss and Gabrielle Birkner have a story in the Forward about some of the charities who were invested with Madoff. But I fear this story only scratches the surface; a lot of hospitals, schools and charities will be closed because of this reckless man.

Speaking of greed and recklessness, the Times has another great story on page one by Louise Story about just how big a crock all the Wall Street bonuses were over the last few years.

In other news, Time Magazine's man of the year is Barack Obama. (What a shock.)

Newsweek's Michael Isikoff has a really terrific piece about Thomas Tamm, the heretofore unknown whistleblower on the Bush Administration's domestic spying program.

George Packer tears Sean Penn a new one on his blog. (You go George! No matter how good an actor Sean Penn is, listening to him talk about politics makes liberals like me really, really cringe.)

And for my schlubs out there: Burger King (yes that Burger King) is offering a new cologne called "Flame."

Milquetoast

If you were planning on seeing Gus Van Sant's biopic about Harvey Milk, the openly gay San Francisco Supervisor (which is the San Francisco version of a city council) I would stay home.

The film faithfully follows Milk's life from a closeted New York businessman (although brazen enough to pick up guys in the subway) to an out-of-the-closet-on-the-streets San Francisco activist and politician.

Perhaps it was a little too faithful.

Not that it was egregiously bad, but by the end of it I was bored silly. As was my movie companion.

And the surprising thing -- for me, anyway -- was the fact that it seems like Milk's death was a lot less politically motivated than I had originally thought.

Granted, I never knew that much about Milk. But I had always been under the impression that he was some sort of martyr for the gay rights movement. But his death in the movie is a lot less explicitly about the fact that Milk was gay than it was about his political rivalry with certifiable nut Dan White.

The movie makes the allusion that White was, himself, a closeted homosexual. The only proof of this, however, is the fact that Milk suspects it.

White has a few conversations with Milk that might be somewhat suggestive if either of them had acted on it. But it doesn't seem like he did. Moreover, a person who will gun down his boss (Mayor George Moscone) and his colleague (Milk) in cold blood cannot be simply placed in an easy category. (Does anybody really think such a crime can be boiled down to, "Well, of course the guy became a murderer -- he was in the closet!"?)

The other disappointing thing about Milk is that you don't really get the festival atmosphere that I (as a straight man) was always led to believe existed in the Castro District in the 1970s. Wasn't there quite a bit of excitement in the gay movement about coming out of the closet? It felt like Van Sant decided to trade the more fun, interesting parts of that atmosphere for the austere and political. Probably a mistake.

Wait for it to come on cable.