Missives From the Reality-Based World
Well, okay, it wasn’t just him; Douglas Adams had more than a little to do with it too, but that’s another story. It was 1982, and I was a freshman in high school. It was typically tough, as those years often are; but it was perhaps a little harder on me — not because I was a burgeoning pubescent, but because […]
What we had: What we dreamed of: What we ended up with:
…which one is different, do you know? Can you tell me which thing is not like the others? And I’ll tell you if it is so. You know it’s only a matter of hours before the op-ed cartoons start, featuring Cronkite, Armstrong and MJ together on the Moon. Only one of them doesn’t deserve to be lionized. You […]
When Bush 43 was still — eww — in office, news broke that circumcised men had a lower chance of contracting HIV infection than their uncut counterparts when having unprotected sex. The “news” was treated as a major breakthrough and, as I recall, a lot of counseling was done of uncircumcised men, suggesting they have their foreskins removed instead […]
For starters, well, yecch.* That out of the way, let’s talk about this video for a moment. These women are viably conventionally heterosexually attractive. Buxom, one blond and the other brunette. I mention this because it’s clear that the video was intended — scat aside — to appeal to heterosexual men. Apart from the parts that have spawned […]
Early in the era of talkies, a man named Al Jolson put on blackface and issued what is regarded by many today as one of the most shameful performances in American cinema through The Jazz Singer. Possibly the only way for him to be more obnoxious would be to affect a Rochester accent, eat watermelon and fried […]
Kindle and Kindle 2 are on the forefront of many discussions now. Rather than talk about the pros and cons of the device in depth, I thought it might be good to repost something I wrote on June 4, 2001 about another eBook reader. The short version of my argument against Kindle is twofold. 1. There’s no guarantee […]
I really do. I’ve been a fan for more than a quarter century. Eeriest part. “Years ago, I was an angry young man…” Byrne’s presentation, his face. Nice, effective. Eyes closed, then open, then closed again. That video was made twenty years ago. Christ, they all look so young. What does that mean about me?
Image by Patrick Chappatte at Daryl Cagle’s pad. Over the last eight years I’ve been increasingly annoyed by the way Ronald Reagan has been lionized. Airports, aircraft carriers, schools named after the man, and he wasn’t a particularly good or adequate president. Listen. The man ignored AIDS. He had an arms-for-hostages deal going with Iran. (Yes, […]
This is a full-on depression, folks, and it’s only just begun. MSNBC et. al. are still in total denial, using words like recession while documenting the implosion of brands such as Mervyn’s (clothes), Best Buy, Starbucks and so on — but the reality is that this is not a recession any more than the October 1929 crash […]
I’ve been monitoring the English-speaking world’s response to the Mumbai attacks of last week, and in that time I’ve encountered (out of dozens) one editorial cartoon and one column that actually cut to the heart of the matter. If you go to Daryl Cagle’s archive of political toons, you’ll find a subsection on the Mumbai attacks. […]
The Minutemen, founded by wackaloon Jim Gilchrist, are disintegrating: Gilchrist’s movement is falling apart, overtaken by new members whom he describes as “troublemakers with personality disorders and criminal propensities.” As opposed to their original membership, which was entirely sane and rational. Gilchrist, his face leathered from spending days under the scorching desert sun, takes a drag […]
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