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’s Just Another Word For Nothing Left to Lose” Friedman, Gail “The Colander” Collins, Nicholas “The Dark Crystal” Kristof, &c. This is a daily feature dedicated to these folks: one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality.] Today\’s is from Roger \”Life of the Party\” Cohen, whose column \”Change of Perish\” I really, really liked. He begins: Before...
Continue reading...America's Next Top Jesus Sculptor
(Good?) News from Ohio, folks. The long wait for the replacement Jesus statue may finally be winding down, says Darlene Bishop, co-founder of the Solid Rock Church outside of Cincinnati whose “Touchdown Jesus” statue burned down in a freak (or God-sent?) lightning strike back in June. According to Bishop, the field of potential savior-portrayers has been narrowed down to 5, and a decision will likely be made sometime this month. The new portrait won’t be an exact replica of the old one. Rather than a bust, the new one will likely be a full-body sculpture, and it...
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’s Just Another Word For Nothing Left to Lose” Friedman, Gail “The Colander” Collins, Nicholas “The Dark Crystal” Kristof, &c. This is a daily feature dedicated to these folks: one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. Today\’s is from Ross \”Do That Thing\” Douthat, who gives the president some sage Republican advice in his column \”A Man...
Continue reading...The many moments of Rick Sanchez
On Friday, CNN went ahead and sacked show-host Rick Sanchez, a day after he called Jon Stewart a “bigot” and suggested that—yes, he really did—that CNN is run by Jews: “I’m telling you that everybody who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart, and to imply that somehow they, the people in this country who are Jewish, are an oppressed minority? Yeah.“ Well, I’m surprised he’s lasted this long, really. His show, “Rick’s List,” wasn’t that great, and he hasn’t really...
Continue reading...Weekend Roundup
I\’m reading Freedom, and it\’s way better than The Corrections, which I read and promptly forgot pretty much the entire contents of. Yeah, I know, pretty novel for me to rave about Jonathan Franzen\’s latest, but there you have it. It\’s quite riveting. I always forget, though, when I embark on a Serious Contemporary Novel, how such books never ever have happy endings (or beginnings or middles, typically). Sometimes this bums me out. Like, there\’s enough true sad stuff without having to spend one\’s leisure time reading about fake sad stuff. I watched The Social Network, and...
Continue reading...Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!
I have very little to say, and even fewer excuses to make. So, instead, I propose a gift and we’ll pretend all of this never happened: You’re welcome, and I hope it’s still available, because that’s genius. Starts a little slow, but from about 2:30 on, it’s straight fire.
Continue reading...Christine O'Donnell's imaginary witchcraft
Slactivist: The oddest thing to me about Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell’s “I Was A Teenage Witch” claims is that so much of the reaction has accepted her claim that such a thing might be possible. It is not. Her claims of “dabbling” in what she called “witchcraft” are not true. The supposed witchcraft she describes is not something that exists. Such stories of bloody altars and Satanic covens are common and they are false. All of them. That is a matter of established fact. The supposed witchery O’Donnell describes is simply the stuff of Satanic panic...
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’s Just Another Word For Nothing Left to Lose” Friedman, Gail “The Colander” Collins, Nicholas “The Dark Crystal” Kristof, &c. This is a daily feature dedicated to these folks: one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. Today\’s is from Gail \”The Colander\” Collins, who in her column \”Waiting for Somebody,\” writes: I’m still haunted by a debate...
Continue reading...Poem of the Week: The Rain
The Rain by Robert Creeley All night the sound had come back again, and again falls this quiet, persistent rain. What am I to myself that must be remembered, insisted upon so often? Is it that never the ease, even the hardness, of rain falling will have for me something other than this, something not so insistent— am I to be locked in this final uneasiness. Love, if you love me, lie next to me. Be for me, like rain, the getting out of the tiredness, the fatuousness, the semi- lust of intentional indifference. Be wet with...
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’s Just Another Word For Nothing Left to Lose” Friedman, Gail “The Colander” Collins, Nicholas “The Dark Crystal” Kristof, &c. This is a daily feature dedicated to these folks: one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. Today\’s is from Thomas \”Tommy Boy\” Friedman, who in his column \”The Tea Kettle Movement,\” writes: How can you take a...
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