The 2004 election was ugly and divisive, but it was much simpler than this year’s, which had myriad primary contenders. The 2004 election also lent itself to a grand narrative of which libertarian aims, contrary to subsequent pessimism, still seemed a part.
•I recall starting out the second half of 2004 seeing a speech by […]
Emir Kusturica’s “Pitbull Terrier.”
Some glimpses of rock across the ages:
•I mentioned Meat Loaf yesterday, and speaking of rockstar weight-gain, here’s Ann Wilson with sister Nancy in the 70s and three decades later (here looking better than she sometimes does, I think), again with Nancy. One half of Heart, still fabulous, the other, a living simulacrum of […]
It’s all connected: I think we knew songwriter/producer Jim Steinman’s songs (such as Meatloaf’s best-known stuff) are Wagnerian. What I didn’t realize is that he got his start in college actually writing an updated version of a Wagner opera. Since then, his stuff has been distinctive enough that I correctly guessed the man […]
This has to be some sort of record for time elapsed before revising old DC Comics stories: Grant Morrison declares last month’s finales of Death of the New Gods and Countdown to Final Crisis “apocryphal” — and I don’t blame him. As I said in an earlier entry, he clearly wrote his stuff first, […]
So hot…nearly…100 degrees…yet…gotta love…new tourism ad…for Ocean City, NJ MD featuring…mayor…implicitly mocking global warming alarmism…by urging people to visit city now because science warns oceans will evaporate…in a billion years…got the level of urgency…about right…stupid greens…so…stupid…
Some might say my priorities are askew if I spent last night with a group entirely composed of fellow straight males, passed up a chance this morning to frolic with attractive bisexual women at the beach (on this sweltering New York Saturday), am scheduled to dine tonight with an ex-girlfriend I didn’t marry, and am […]
This week, in mid-2008, brought our Debate at Lolita Bar about Bob Barr, seen above with yours truly in an anti-Clinton t-shirt that’s likely to be outdated soon, possibly even today. The same day as the debate, Clark Caldwell of CBS shot a vlog of Barr’s reaction to the possibility of Hillary Clinton as […]
Two thoughts about Bob Barr, one of the figures discussed — and one of the audience members in attendance – at our historic Debate at Lolita Bar last night:
1. A recent Rasmussen poll puts him at 6% already — even though only about a third of the population have heard of him, which in a […]
A side question on my mind during the lead-up to the debate I’m hosting tonight about the relative merits of John McCain and potential spoiler Bob Barr:
Might paleoconservatives (especially if Edwards ends up on the Dem ticket, though Hillary as v.p. seems increasingy inevitable) see even Obama, never mind Barr, as a more pious, populist, […]
ToddSeavey.com Book Selection of the Month (June 2008): Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity by Charles Taylor
Not to be confused with the authoritarian former president of Liberia recently put on trial, this Charles Taylor is a Canadian philosopher sometimes considered a communitarian who, five years after Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue (which […]
With this week being the time when Democratic leaders — crucially, leaders other than Hillary Clinton — have said people should make up their minds between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, we may not have HRC to kick around much longer. That’s why I’m wearing my anti-Hillary t-shirt (“Re-Defeat Communism [in] 2008”) at every […]
Just as nerds typically juggle several mythologies in their heads — Marvel, animean, Narnian, UFOlogical, to take this month’s four big filmic examples — any fantasy universe with multiple writers is likely to show many mythological influences. Grant Morrison went a step further with the first issue of the comic book Final Crisis, though, […]
