By Kat Stoeffel 3/12 2:03pm

Party Animals

10 Photos

Hostess Glenn Close with documentarian Alastair Fothergill

Cocktail Attire but Penguins Galore at the Premiere of Frozen Planet

She got snubbed at the Oscars last month, but Glenn Close had a winner’s glow when she arrived to host the premiere of Frozen Planet at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall on Thursday.

And for good reason.

Her cross-dressing Albert Nobbs performance has made her an unexpected LGBTQ hero and one of Newsweek’s 150 Fearless Women (one of just four actresses to make the list). As a sudden spokeswoman for gender issues, The Transom wondered what she made of Congressional Republicans’ efforts to limit the availability of contraceptives.
“Shameful, shameful shameful!” Ms. Close, dressed handsomely in a black suit, told us. “Because what’s really behind that is a real violence towards women, it’s about pulling women down to where we were in the ‘50s. I mean it’s disgusting.” Read More

By Joe Conason 4/20/10 6:36pm

Op-Ed

Why the ‘Obama Effect’ Abroad Matters

As approval ratings for Barack Obama continue to decline at home, world opinion of the United States is rising steadily under his stewardship. A new international survey by the British Broadcasting Company reveals that views of the U.S. around the world have “improved sharply” during the first year of the Obama presidency, with positive opinion Read More

By Matt Haber and John Koblin 6/11/08 12:10am

60 Months in the Red Zone

“It’s the oft-stated phrase that truth is the first casualty of war,” said Michael Ware, CNN’s Baghdad correspondent, on the telephone from Iraq. “In this war, as in every other conflict, everybody lies to you. Your government is lying to you. The Iraqi government is lying. The insurgents are lying. The militias are lying. The Read More