The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 77

Book Review D5 Over 60 D3 Names Faces D4 Advice D6 Movie Directory D4-5 TV and Radio D7-8 The Boston Globe Tuesday, December 5, 2000 Alex Beam Simla Reinharz lias a genius for bringing people together and making them feel good about doing something beneficial for the Pandering in the best of taste (o I was leafing through The New York Times Magazine's recent special issue on Hollywood a monstrous stroke job, to be sure when I came across this sentence: "Hollywood pools are different from pools in the rest of America," the photographer Lauren Greenfield says. TJveryone in LA has his own pool, and if very important to certain kinds of people in LA that their pools reflect their personalities." These words appeared underneath Greenfield's color portrait of power couple Peter and Tara Lynda Guber's vast, custom-designed "pool behind their sprawling home, which took four years to build." Ms. Guber says their pool Tias a certain energy. If good for my body and spirit" So here is the new mission of the modern journalist: licking the boots of the ruling class. Consider The Wall Street Journal's recent feature story on the "new economy family." "Dad now earns so much that it doesnt pay for Mom to work," the paper tells us.

(This article ran on the same page as a proposed remedy for "fat wallet These families, we learn, are common in the household income bracket of $250,000 to $499,999, and "even more common" for households earning GLOBE STAFF PHOTOBILL GREENE Shula Reinharz at home in Newton; a donor to the Brandeis Women's Studies Research Center says of her: "She is just one cell of focused between $500,000 and $999,999. Who are these people? They're not Americans, not in any meaningful sense. The median household income here is $40,000. They dont even fit the profile of Wall Street Journal readers; the median income for the Journal's readership is $162,000. Ifs hard to believe Elite newspapers churn out aristo-porn to lure upscale advertisers who want to sell expensive Big woman on camous Shula Reinharz wanted a women's center at Brandeis, so she raised the money and had it built, for starters By Linda Matchan GLOBE STAFF WALTHAM Ifs been said of Shulamit Reinharz that if she'd been in charge of the Big Dig, it would have been finished by now.

Ifs an uncommon compliment for an academic, especially in the field of women's studies. But there's nothing common about Shula Reinharz Brandeis University sociologist, director of the women's studies program, founding director of a Brandeis research center on Jewish women, and fund-raiser par excellence. Reinharz, 54, single-handedly raised $2.4 million to rehabilitate a rundown campus warehouse and convert it into the Brandeis University Women's Studies Research Center, an intellectual hub for women that opened last month. It doesnt hurt that she's married to the president of Brandeis, Jehuda Reinharz. Still, she is by all accounts a powerhouse in her own right, so charismatic and relentless about winning people over to her cause that a California philanthropist she knows sold a painting in her collection a Georgia OTCeeffe to donate $100,000 to the project She inspired Lee An-nenberg, wife of philanthropist Walter, to donate 1 million to the center; Dale Chihuly of Seattle American's most celebrated glass artist to send over a $30,000 work of glass art to the center as a housewarming gift; and Tiffany Co.

to underwrite an elegant congratulatory cocktail reception for 100 of the center's supporters at its Copley Place store. "Shula could have been building a trash bin out there; it didnt matter to Harold," says Diane Troderman, who made a gift of $300,000 to the center with her husband, Harold Grin- REINHARZ, Page D8 gUllk. tnatunsKUie 0 same newspaper that sent Alex Kotlowitz into the Chicago housing projects some years ago to tell its readers that the most common sound children heard there was not the tinkling of the bell on the ice-cream wagon, but the crackle of gunfire. Elite newspapers churn out aristo-pom to lure upscale advertisers who want to sell expensive gunk. I understand that We here at the Globe would probably stand on our heads for a Bulgari watch ad.

But alas, not everyone in Boston owns a swimming pool. Or has $1,500 to blow on a hotel room, or a meal. If you do, you must appreciate Journal reporter Laura Lan-dro's repulsive kvetching about hotels in Paris, Beverly Hills, and on the Amalfi coast And the Times's obscene coverage of the opening of Manhattan's $160 prix fixe restaurant, Alain Du-casse. The paper of record has devoted a "sneak preview" (The signing of the check at Alain Ducasse is a special moment a profile, a review, a follow-up story, and even an editorial only to this 65-seat temple of wonders. If only Ralph Nader had set up his campaign headquarters inside Alain Ducasse, the Times editorial board might have taken his candidacy seriously.

I occasionally interact with journalism students, and it is generally a pleasant experience. They seem polite, curious, and as about in tune with the Zeitgeist as one would expect an 18- or 19-year-old to be. But I wonder who do they want to be? Bill O'Reilly? Katie Couric? Sometimes I ask after H. Mencken, the lodestar for many a cantankerous iconoclast That gets me a blank stare. Carey McWilliams was one of my heroes; I wonder if anyone's ever heard of him.

Fve even been known to mention the journalisf credo "Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comforted." Students find that quaint indeed. 1 dont want to pose as some tribune for the downtrodden. I am as indifferent to the suffering of my fellow human being as the next guy. But I'm proud to work for a paper that is occasionally mocked for its excessive concern for society's marginals. (Hoary joke on how newspapers will cover the end of the world: New York Post "Michael Jackson, Others, Die in Nuclear Holocaust Boston Globe "World Ends; Women, Blacks, Adversely And I am honored to work alongside the men and women who write those stories.

But I worry: Who will take their place? Alex Beam's e-dress ubeamglobe The blooming of neo-soul Music style gets boost from budding artists CP Review Old songs are still all the Rage By Steve Morse GLOBE STAFF In a field crammed with slack, MTV-schmoozing airheads, Rage Against the Machine is the most socially conscious, hardest-hitting metal-rap band. The group has spoken out against police brutality, spoken for the Zapatista rebels in Mexico, and general By Renee Graham GLOBE STAFF When the stories are written about this year in music, most of the subplots will be familiar. There will be the con-ijfp jn tinueddomi-Aiu nance of teen the Pop Lane pop, in which Sync, Britney Spears, and the Backstreet Boys released albums that each sold at least 1 million copies during their debut weeks. Eminem became the rapper of the moment with one of the most revered and reviled albums in recent memory, "The Marshall Mathers LP." After more than a decade, Smashing Pumpkins sadly ground to a halt, and one of the best bands of the 1990s, Rage Against the Machine, was in disarray with the sudden departure of lead singer Zackde la Rocha. But what didnt garner the headlines may be the best story to emerge from this quirky year of music the blossoming of the neo-soul movement Whereas in the past there was a D'Angelo here, and a Badu there, this was the year when several neo-soul artists whose sound is fresh and contemporary while harking back to the musicality and talents of Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, and Stevie Wonder truly claimed their places, and put out some of the year's great music.

Beginning with neo-soul pioneer D'Angelo's sophomore effort, 2000 POP LANE, Pag D2 PHOTODAVID CLINCH Rage Against the Machine's new album, "Renegades," is out today. ly denounced unjust authority wherever it may be. Rage has sold millions of records with its pulverizing sound and biting protest messages but has also suffered from "incredibly dysfunctional personal dynamics," says the band's Harvard-educated guitarist, Tom Mor-ello. He admits: "I always felt that every show was going to be our last and every record, too." There has been a crack in the Rage armor with the recent departure of singerrapper Zack de la Rocha, who quit to pursue a solo career. But MoreDo, drummer Brad Wilk, and bassist Tim Commerford vow to keep going.

They're closing the chapter with de la Rocha with today's release of an incendiary CD, "Renegades," containing Rage-ified cover versions of RAGE, Pag D5 Pro's voice is like Whitney Houston's, minus a few decibels. IT :7.