[ Posted Tuesday, January 2nd, 2018 – 18:56 UTC ]
Welcome to 2018! As always, we like to start the year off on a irreverent note, examining the tireless work which takes place every year on the shores of Gitchee Gumee, far up north in the Lake Superior State University of Michigan. This time of year, it's like eleventy-zillion below zero up there, so you can understand why they sit around desperately trying to stave off cabin fever by coming up with the "official" banished words list in their ceaseless attempts to get the rest of us to stop using insipid, incorrect, or repetitive terms quite so much. So, tongue placed firmly in cheek, let's take a look at the 2018 list of banished words, without further introduction.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Tuesday, December 26th, 2017 – 16:12 UTC ]
In a twist to its tradition of tracking an animated version of Santa Claus' sleigh and reindeer as he flies around the globe on December 24, the military is adding the animated fighter plane escort to give a realistic feel to the popular feature, said a spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command.
"We wanted to let folks know that, hey, this is a NORAD video, and we're the military and this is our mission," said the spokesman, Navy Captain Jeff Davis.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Friday, December 22nd, 2017 – 18:52 UTC ]
Sadly, for the first time, we really have to explain our title. It used to be rather self-evident, but then it's been more than a year since The McLaughlin Group went off the air, after the death of host John McLaughlin.
The show was a political chatfest and ran for decades. Regulars such as Clarence Page and Pat Buchanan used to face off every week on all sorts of subjects, but at the end of the year they put on two special awards shows.
Long ago, we decide to write our own suggestions in an homage (which is so much nicer than "in a blatant ripoff of their bit," don't you think?). We've done so for over a decade now (there's a list of links to all of these at the end of this article, for anyone interested in past awards given).
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Thursday, December 21st, 2017 – 23:05 UTC ]
When is Christmas? And why?
These are questions guaranteed to get you funny looks when you pop them, especially in a gathering of wassail-soaked relatives. But if you're tired of hearing the seemingly-eternal "this is what Uncle Fred did when he was twelve" stories, and you're leery of bringing up politics with your kin from Outer Podunk, then it's at least a conversation-starter that's somewhat neutral. Plus, you can reaffirm your nearest-and-dearests' image of you as a latte-sipping fruitcake who moved away from the glory of the heartland and now lives on (say it with an embarrassed whisper) the coast.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Friday, December 1st, 2017 – 19:35 UTC ]
This morning, Donald Trump's first National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, pled guilty to charges of lying to the F.B.I. He is now the highest-ranking Trump aide to be targeted by Robert Mueller, and also the highest-ranking person to have flipped on Trump. Flynn is still at risk of being prosecuted for other charges as well, including lying about his foreign lobbying on government forms. But he's now apparently cut a deal with the prosecution to possibly avoid further charges and also reportedly to avoid charges for his son.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Friday, November 17th, 2017 – 18:24 UTC ]
America is in the midst of a gigantic sea-change on how accusations of sexual misconduct are viewed. That much seems certain. You could say it began with the Access Hollywood tape during Donald Trump's campaign, or you could argue it began with the end of Harvey Weinstein's Hollywood career. Notably, the "Me Too" movement has actually been around for a decade, but it really caught fire this year in a big way. But no matter the origins of the shift, America now views accusations of sexual misconduct in a much different light than before.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Thursday, November 16th, 2017 – 19:33 UTC ]
After writing two columns on sexual misconduct and politics within the past seven days, I never thought I'd be writing about it again so soon. But today's breaking news pretty much precludes any other political discussion, even on a day when the House passed a real stinkeroo of a tax bill. Because on a purely political level, things just got a lot more complicated for Democrats with today's accusation against Senator Al Franken.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Monday, October 30th, 2017 – 18:23 UTC ]
As that learned philosopher Alice Cooper once said, welcome to my nightmare. Nightmares, actually, since (as usual) we have one terrifying tale of fright for the right, and one spine-tingling scare story for the left, just to be even-handed.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Tuesday, September 19th, 2017 – 17:18 UTC ]
The problem with Trump's use of Rocket Man is that it isn't particularly insulting. It actually sounds pretty cool, in a retro 1950s-sci-fi kind of way. Elton John and Bernie Taupin didn't write the song until 1972, and Taupin admitted being influenced by a 1970 song of the same name by the band Pearls Before Swine. But both songs were inspired by a short story by Ray Bradbury ("The Rocket Man," from the book The Illustrated Man), which is about as retro 1950s-sci-fi as you can get.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Wednesday, August 23rd, 2017 – 16:52 UTC ]
Maybe we all just misheard him. Maybe it was his outer-borough accent. Maybe what candidate Donald Trump really said was:
Read Complete Article »
