If you’re one of the four-or-so frequent readers of this here blog, chances are you also occasionally check out the New York Times op-ed page. You may even know the names: Thomas Friedman, Gail Collins, Nicholas Kristoff, &c. Well, I’ve decided to devote a daily feature to these folks, by daily pointing out one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy. Today\’s is from Ross \”Do That Thing\” Douthat, who in his surprisingly interesting column \”The Better Pope,\” writes: Only one churchman comes out of [The...
Continue reading...April 2010
Morning Constitutional – Monday, 12 April 2010
Good morning, everybody. Phil Mickelson won a funny jacket this weekend. Now, your morning constitutional: Much to the consternation of locals, President Obama is hosting a two-day nuclear security summit in downtown D.C. The times notices that Pakistan is conveniently not on the agenda. Tragedy for Poland this weekend, as Polish president Lech Kaczyński and many of the country\’s leaders were killed in a plane crash over Russia. Photos. Josh Marshall at TPM has a story of one of the victims, who had served as a president-in-exile of Poland until 1990. Thailand\’s red-shirt protesters marched in the...
Continue reading...Alex Chilton: Likely or unlikely victim of the debacle that was the health care system?
Over at NOLA.com, there’s a spectacular overview of Alex Chilton\’s life in New Orleans, where he lived mostly anonymously and quietly for over 28 years. I recommend you read it if you care about music at all (because you should care about Alex Chilton if you like music at all). This part, however, kind of struck me: At least twice in the week before his fatal heart attack, Chilton experienced shortness of breath and chills while cutting grass. But he did not seek medical attention, Kersting said, in part because he had no health insurance. So, rock...
Continue reading...Things I Drink And So Should You: The Manhattan
As this is posted, yours truly will be about to board the world’s greatest conveyance: the train. When you ride in a car, especially if you’re driving — and I always am, since I’m a control freak* — you’re worried about the car in the lane next to you, or the one oncoming, or the deer/pedestrian/deer-pedestrian about to veer into your path. In a plane, you never have the feeling of traveling, but rather of being transported from one location to another, without ever having had any interaction with the miles between. I hate that. I love...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – 9 April 2010
Good morning everybody. In an ultimate injustice, the Jersey Shore \”kids\” have not been welcome at Miami\’s hottest spots. Now, your morning constitutional: Rep. Bart Stupak, mostly responsible for a compromise leading to the passage of the health care reform bill, has announced he will not be seeking re-election. Did President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld cover up the fact that they knew that hundreds of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay were in fact innocent? Lawrence Wilkerson, an aide to then-Secretary Colin Powell, claims that that Cheney and Rumsfeld knew that the majority of the initial...
Continue reading...There will never be an Arrested Development movie and that is fine
So, it looks like there won’t be an Arrested Development movie after all. Co-star David Cross said in an interview: I think what I will tell you, it’s not going to happen. It’s not official, but I just don’t think it’s going to happen. Way too much time it’s been (since the show ended). I mean, there’s so many people involved. Everyone’s doing their own thing, you know. And everybody’s aged. It’s just not going to happen. I’m sure I speak for everybody when I say we’d love for it to happen, we’d love to work on...
Continue reading...New York Times Columnist Line of the Day
If you’re one of the four-or-so frequent readers of this here blog, chances are you also occasionally check out the New York Times op-ed page. You may even know the names: Thomas Friedman, Gail Collins, Nicholas Kristoff, &c. Well, I’ve decided to devote a daily feature to these folks, by daily pointing out one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy. Today\’s is from Gail \”The Colander*\” Collins, in her column entitled \”A Confederacy of Dunces,\” in which she writes about Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell\’s efforts...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – 8 April 2010
Good morning, everybody. If you lived in North Korea, you\’d be hearing all about how the Dear Leader\’s style is now in fashion worldwide because of his greatness. But, since you don\’t, here\’s your morning constitutional: President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a major nuclear arms pact this morning in Prague that will reduce the nuclear stockpiles in both countries. It still needs to be ratified by the U.S. Senate, where its future is uncertain, and the Russian Duma. The opposition group in Kyrgyzstan responsible for the recent unrest has apparently taken power, dissolved parliament,...
Continue reading...New York Times Columnist Line of the Day
If you’re one of the four-or-so frequent readers of this here blog, chances are you also occasionally check out the New York Times op-ed page. You may even know the names: Thomas Friedman, Gail Collins, Nicholas Kristoff, &c. Well, I’ve decided to devote a daily feature to these folks, by daily pointing out one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy. Today\’s Line of the Day comes from Thomas \”Fried at last\” Friedman, who writes in his column \”Who\’s Up for Building Bridges?\” that: I’m no...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – 7 April 2010
Good morning, folks. George Lucas and Seth Green are going to make an animated comedy based on Star Wars. Now, your morning constitutional. Correction: Yesterday, we reported that the rules for Scrabble might be changing. Turns out that isn\’t the case at all. A major 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra this morning, triggering two tsunamis and injuring several people. No casualties have been reported. Seventeen have been killed in anti-government protests in Kyrgyzstan as police clash with protesters in the nation\’s capital. President Kurmanbek Saliyevich Bakiyev has declared a...
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