If you frequent this here premier “web log,” there’s a good chance you may once or twice have read the New York Times op-ed page. You might even recognize the names of the columnists, who every day spout the most conventionally wise of the conventional wisdom. This is a feature that is dedicated to these folks, highlighting one line that is either funny, ridiculous, strange, or actually intelligent or well-written. Today’s is from David Brooks, who in his Mothers Day column today, extols the virtues of aristocracy (because of course he did): We should fight unfair advantages like legacy admissions, but we...
Continue reading...2015
Watch: Geraldo Rivera confronted about Fox News coverage of Baltimore
We’ve been away for some things (big congrats to ghost!), but I’m popping in because everybody should watch this video of Baltimore resident Kwame Rose speaking truths to Fox News “reporter” Geraldo Rivera. Like, every single word is truth. This kid is terrific.
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New York Times Columnist Line of the Day – 14 April 2015
If you frequent this here premier “web log,” there’s a good chance you may once or twice have read the New York Times op-ed page. You might even recognize the names of the columnists, who every day spout the most conventionally wise of the conventional wisdom. This is a feature that is dedicated to these folks, highlighting one line that is either funny, ridiculous, strange, or actually intelligent or well-written. Today’s is a doozy and comes from our old pal David Brooks, who in his column today, “The Lost Language of Privacy,” writes: Cop-cams will insult families. Honestly, there was so much...
Continue reading...Watch: This amazing and creepy Teletubbies/Joy Division mashup
Inspired by this tweet (nightmares), here’s an incredible and eerie video mashup of the Teletubbies in black and white accompanied by Joy Division’s “Atmosphere” by Christopher G. Brown. Here’s more on its creation. Maybe the Teletubbies already kind of freak you out, but either way, you’ll never be able to unsee this. Pleasant dreams. And, another one:
Continue reading...D.C./Virginia area, here’s your (belated) weather report
Sure, it’s already snowing a bunch*, but you need this. We at V+V HQ have now watched this five times to make sure we get all the information. *LOLBoston P.S. Have a hot toddy; the government’s closed tomorrow.
Continue reading...It’s cold outside, so it’s time for a hot toddy
As it is the time of year we celebrate the birthday of our hallowed first president, many of us have been gifted the treasured three-day weekend. And since I have been gifted three days off in a row, my immune system has found it necessary to gift me in return a gnarly rhinovirus. Being sick, though, is a great excuse to use whiskey as medicine. Now, please do not take medical advice from me. Get your medical advise from doctors, not bloggers or huckster celebrities. Come to think of it, don’t take medical advice from huckster celebrities...
Continue reading...Hell Bent for Election
So this is cool: an animated film directed by Chuck Jones that was basically a union-sponsored campaign ad for FDR. So this is cool: an animated film directed by Chuck Jones that was basically a union-sponsored campaign ad for FDR. From the YouTube description: Hell-Bent For Election was a 1944 two-reel (thirteen minute) animated cartoon short subject now in the public domain. The short was one of the first major films from United Productions of America (then known as “Industrial Films”), which would go on to become the most influential animation studio of the 1950s. As UPA...
Continue reading...Highways, A Metaphor
Started writing this for something else, but it ended up being a little too elaborate and didn’t fit, so here. Everybody is born in a car, and the car is driving rapidly down a major highway. When each person comes to life, they know nothing, a reality not unlike John Locke’s posited tabula rasa. Each person knows not where they are, what direction in which they are heading, and especially neither the cause nor the destination of the mysterious car ride. Unbeknownst to every person as they are born is that the destination is a town called Success,...
Continue reading...Parks and Rec creator says smart thing about government in random interview
I definitely don’t want it to fly by when somebody says something randomly that is very smart about government. Mike Schur, man behind some of the best sitcoms of all time, one of which is Parks and Recreation, was asked about the era that led to the creation of a show about local government: And then there were a couple of other things, the biggest of which I think obviously is that at the time Greg and I were developing the show around the summer of 2008, the world economy was collapsing around us, the McCain/Obama campaign...
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