If all has gone according to plan, yesterday, the day after my pre-written, automatically-posted blog entry about communism vs. punk, I dined with friends in the Boston area — not all at the same meal (merely for scheduling reasons) — who ranged from a Billy Bragg fan to an actual living, breathing Southern Republican politician, […]
If you’re looking for something to do this weekend — with the Olympics over, Obama having ascended to Olympus, and me being away in New England for various purposes through Labor Day (despite blog entries still magically appearing) — consider going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibit of superhero-themed clothing, which closes after this […]
Cretins, many residing in places like Brooklyn or Berkeley, who see resistance to capitalism as the ultimate purpose of punk or other creative impulses — not to mention the ultimate purpose of politicians — would do well to stop for a moment today and remember the plight of Gorki Aguila. He’s the punk rocker and […]
I think it would’ve been gauche for McCain to announce his running mate today, when Obama’s doing his whole Sermon on the Mount/Zeus in Clash of the Titans thing.
Worse, though, on any day, would be McCain announcing that his running mate were Lieberman or Huckabee. I expressed my dread of the former on Sunday […]
Politicians love to accuse each other of being divisive demagogues — making such claims helps them be unifying demagogues. Obama is one of the most amazing cases I’ve yet seen of someone who manages to say, in effect, “Let us stop fighting and come together (behind me), so that partisan bickering can end (and […]
Watching this week’s Democratic convention tie itself into politically-correct knots trying to make the whole production “green” (not to mention all-union) has of course been hilarious — but it should never be forgotten that these uptight, rule-making, obsessive nitwits want desperately to govern us all in the same Kafkaesque fashion. The Democrats are not […]
(As a goodwill gesture on the first day of the Democrats’ convention in Denver.)
Pragmatically speaking, is Obama the only alternative to the U.S. fighting simultaneous, arguably unnecessary wars in Eastern Europe, Afghanistan, Iraq, and even Iran?
I’d be willing to limp along with higher taxes and a weakened economy for a few years to avoid all […]
Well, Obama and his running mate, Biden, have one thing in common: Neither of them likes Clarence Thomas.
Obama picked Thomas when asked the one Supreme Court Justice he wouldn’t have appointed. Back at Thomas’s confirmation hearings in 1991, Biden was rivaled only by Paul Simon (the Senator, alas, not the singer) in his utter […]
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I talked about Ralph Nader in yesterday’s entry, and that reminds me that I actually went to a Nader speech at Princeton three years ago — because proto-punk singer Patti Smith was opening for him. If that’s not a reminder that (a) alternative rock, obviously, leans […]
I think the most surprising part of that article about Nader predicting Obama will pick Hillary for his running mate is that Nader says Obama’s second-smartest pick would be Sam Nunn. Nader says Nunn would provide foreign policy heft and help in Georgia (the U.S. Georgia, where both Green Party prez candidate Cynthia McKinney […]
Thomas Frank is the author of the anti-conservative screed What’s the Matter with Kansas? (released in Europe as What’s the Matter with America?, which suggests to me that Kansas wasn’t all that aberrant after all). He likes anti-conservative conspiracy theories, particularly anti-market ones.
Virtually every column he writes takes one of two juvenile forms: either […]
I will not argue that August 2008 is the greatest month in the history of American literature. And yet…
It is largely this month that has drawn me back — very briefly — to comic book reading after about a year’s hiatus, intended to be permanent. And how could I resist?
As a younger person […]
Yesterday, I talked about the inescapable vise of progressive politics — but today let’s talk about the efforts to put a vise around quasi-progressive rock.
Yes, today is the pivotal day in legal history when witch-burning socialists in Massachusetts decide whether to punish the rock band the Fixx for being too cool.
All right, I’m slightly misrepresenting […]
The world’s tallest woman (like the other Todd Seavey, noted in my prior entry) has passed away. She inspired a catchy song by Split Enz (the Finn Brothers’ band before Crowded House). But then, saying “catchy song by Split Enz” is almost redundant.
But apparently, the other Todd James Seavey (perhaps the only other Todd James Seavey?) passed away last week, days after me blathering about aging and birthdays. Rest in peace, my namesake.
I wonder what would happen if I tried to steal his identity now?
