Today’s Interesting – Political Writers are Sports Writers; the Washington Post is Unbalanced; and Snuffleupagus!

October 13, 2010

• If you took this Bill Simmon’s column about how sports reporting works and switched all the references to political ones (minus the personal stuff about his twitter error), it would still be true. That makes me sad.

• By treating the suicide of gay teenagers as an issue that requires balance, the Washington Post shows us everything that’s dumb about the media in one easy step.

• Snuffleupagus’ first name is Aloysius! And the reason he started interacting with the adult cast makes a great of sense.

 


Today’s Interesting – the Facebook Movie, Football Geekery, and Pro Wrestling Casualties

October 4, 2010

• A look at The Social Network from Lawrence Lessig that asks interesting questions about what the movie gets wrong. It also makes a fascinating point about what made Facebook’s rise different and how we might be on the verge of losing that.

• This is the kind of writing about football that makes my head hurt and my heart swell. I love reading something that lets me the see new things during a game.

• I’m a fan of professional wrestling and have a huge amount of respect for the unique combination of athletic and acting ability that a successful wrestler has, but with the way the business treats its people its far more like human cockfighting than boxing or ultimate fighting are. If you read this piece by Dave Zirin and think that WWE executive (and the wife of its founder) Linda McMahon belongs anywhere near the Senate, I’d love to hear from you.


Today’s Interesting – Nicki Minaj; Pat Tillman; Superman

September 27, 2010

• A look at a Nicki Minaj verse and it’s performance by people on Youtube that references Cole Porter, Mary Martin, Marilyn Monroe, and Anna Nicole Smith? And that includes the sentence, “what we’re seeing now is fans … playing Nicki Minaj playing Roman Zolanski playing Anna Nicole Smith playing Marilyn Monroe playing Mary Martin playing herself 72 years ago.” Awesome.

• Bill Maher interviews Pat Tillman’s brother. Includes some disquieting stuff about friendly fire and the Army’s preparedness in terms of covering up such incidents. Also, a powerful review of Jon Krakauer’s book about Tillman’s life, death, and the cover-up is at the sports site Kissing Suzy Kolber. Well worth reading.

• The day on which I no longer care about things like who’s going to direct the next Superman movie will be a happy one in terms what it means about my personal maturity and a sad one for the same reason. (Despite not having seen any of his movies, I strongly feel that the next director should be Duncan Jones, and will argue against the other possibilities with the full power of my nerd rage.)


Today’s Interesting – Murder, Paul Ryan, and Ayn Rand

September 24, 2010

• If hutzpah is what the voters of North Carolina are looking for in their Congressmen, this story of a candidate making an ad about his military service out of a TV news story, while clipping out the bit of the story about his being accused of committing a double murder, should be catnip to them.

• A look at Congressman Paul Ryan’s sudden embrace of the budget reconciliation progress that feels counter-intuitive, but really isn’t. A good take on what separates Republicans from Democrats and what we should hope for from our legislators.

• A powerful, personal, piece about mental illness. That it was written in response to the suicide of a man (professional football player Kenny McKinley) is sad. That it appeared in the sports section makes me hopeful about the positive impact the piece might have.

• That’s some good geeky Ayn Rand burn


I Miss Evil

September 24, 2010

I started out a little scared of Dick Cheney. And of Karl Rove. Further back, even of Newt Gingrich.

I was scared of them because it felt like they were working the levers of a system that I couldn’t perceive.

Even as a teenager it seemed so transparent that Mr. Gingrich was a thundering hypocrite, about both economics and personal morality, that he had to be playing a deeper game within American politics. That some hidden power was pulling the strings and trying to nudge America into a particular shape.

The early days of the Bush administration felt the same way. That there were hidden agendas that may have been kleptocratic, but that still required a basic societal stability from which to profit.

For a Progressive, the opposition felt evil, in the way that a Bond villain is. Or Doctor Doom.

Man, I miss those days.

Now when I look at the politics of the right, there doesn’t seem to be any hidden agendas. There doesn’t seem to be any kind of comforting, comic-book, evil, just inchoate rage from some (Ms. Angle, Mr. DeMint) and the desire to stay one step ahead of that rage for others (Mr. Boehner, Mr. McCain).

Now, not only do the ideas not make sense, but it doesn’t matter that they don’t make sense. There seems to be no fear of ruling over ashes.

I’d like my comic-book bad guys back.


Today’s Interesting – Politics make me Mad. (Mostly “Angry” Mad, but Maybe a little “Crazy” Mad, as Well.)

September 23, 2010

• There’s an amazing stat in the 7th paragraph of this piece by Chris Hayes. It puts the Tea Party movement in a fascinating new light for me.

• Thing like this are why I’m no fun to talk to parties on the topic of politics. (Unless we agree, in which case I’m a riot.) I’d love it if it seemed like the GOP believed what they say they believe, or even the Tea Party, but documents like the GOP’s “Pledge to America” put the lie to that. And you can’t argue with calculated mendacity.

• Along those lines… ANGRY RANTING THAT I MOSTLY AGREE WITH!


Today’s Interesting – Palin as McGovern; Skynet; the Filibuster

September 22, 2010

• It’s sad that this view of how the tea party and a 2010 election victory for the GOP could hurt them in 2012 reads as optimistic, but that seems to be where we are.

• Is this how Skynet started?

• And an interesting perspective on filibuster reform from Ezra Klein. While it would seem a natural for Democrats to reform the filibuster when on the verge of being in the position of needing it, I expect that the GOP, if they take the Senate, will just tidily do away with it after the first Democratic threat of a filibuster.


Today’s Interesting – Delaware Politics, Jets Quarterbacks, and Watch out for that Train!

September 15, 2010

• Charles Pierce writing about anything is good. Charles Pierce writing about what Christine O’Donnell’s primary win in Delaware and what it says (and doesn’t say) about politics is excellent.

• I’m a sucker for good football writing and this piece about the New York Jets offense under coordinator Brian Schottenheimer, and how it uses some very top-level and available statistics to make a compelling and counter-intuitive point, makes me wonder what the Jets’ beat writers do all day.

• Damn. I mean, just, wow.


Seven Jokes for Tuesday (with gun-toting lobbyists, murderous porn stars, and some very happy fish)

June 8, 2010

• New rules at the Texas Capitol Building allow visitors carrying a concealed firearm to bypass the building’s long security line. In other news, a car backfired in front of the Texas Capitol Building today, leading to twelve deaths as lobbyists returned fire.

• The paper industry is testing genetically modified trees. The only problem so far is getting the trees to hold still.

• A sword wielding porn actor killed one person and injured two other in a random attack last week. The only good news is that the word “sword” refers to an actual sword.

• Patriots wide receiver Wes Welker expressed surprised at the jubilant fan reaction he got this week after returning from injury to practice. He added, “It’s great that a white athlete in Boston can be made to feel so welcome.”

• Millionaire Elon Musk’s privately funded rocket reached orbit this week in it’s first test. With the successful test, officials can move forward on plans to fire more millionaires into space.

• Puerto Rican police seized over 3000 pounds of cocaine from a fishing boat this week. They were tipped off when a fish jumped from the smugglers’ boat into theirs, several hundred yards away.

• An ancient graveyard containing the bodies of over a dozen decapitated men, many showing wounds consistent with being mauled by a bear or lion, was recently found in England. Archaeologists think the bodies belong to either Roman gladiators or Margaret Thatcher’s prep school boyfriends.


Eights Jokes for Thursday (featuring Sinkholes, Sarah Palin, and CSI)

June 3, 2010

• A copy of Sarah Palin’s confidential speaking contract was found in a recycling bin at a California university. The school was supposed to shred the document, but quit after getting halfway through.

• A giant sinkhole opened up in a Guatemala City intersection. Officials are blaming a resident who dared the intersection to do an impression of Rand Paul’s campaign.

• Oakland, California, is about to start taxing indoor marijuana growers. The growers’ representative responded to the plan, “What’s ‘indoors’ really mean, man? Aren’t buildings outside?”

• Two Christian aid groups in Afghanistan were suspended for proselytizing. Which is too bad, because that country could really use some more religion.

• The Supreme Court ruled this week that police suspects must announce their intention to remain silent. A suspect’s right to remain ironic was unaffected.

• As many as 10,000 military GPS units malfunctioned last week. Soldiers realized something was wrong when their Humvees just kept repeating the word “recalculating.”

• Illegal immigrants held for deportation are being counted in the census, it was revealed yesterday. As census numbers determine the amount of federal money a state receives, Rhode Island’s “No Border Patrol Here!” tourism campaign suddenly make a lot more sense.

• Nebraska’s chief CSI examiner was sentenced to four years in prison for tampering with evidence. As he was led away, he told reporters, “The hunter… [removes sunglasses]… became the hunted,” and began singing a Who song.


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