Category: Culture
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More Than Zero
I’ve spent a fair chunk of the past 20 years telling people “there was a lot more to the 1980s than Flock of Seagulls hair and Members Only jackets and kitsch”. “Cobra Kai“, the Karate Kid sequel, has been pretty brilliant at showing how those of us who grew up in the ’80s feel like…
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Play ball! (but don’t watch it)
The MLB All-Star game this past Tuesday garnered a rating of 4.2 rating and 7.5 million viewers. Both numbers were record lows, though the game did handily win the night. Last year MLB pulled the All-Star game out of Atlanta because the state of Georgia dared to exercise democratic oversight of its own election process.…
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Recessional
David Mamet, the playwright and screenwriter, is among my favorite writers. (My other favorite to pull off that particular daily double is Tom Stoppard.) In 2008, Mamet wrote a piece at the Village Voice entitled “Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal’.” In it, he described the beginning of his journey away from conventional…
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Rules Of The Game
Most readers of this feature knew the truth in 2020 — Hunter Biden, the uber-prodigal son of the now Leader of the Free World, abandoned a laptop computer at a repair shop in Delaware. The laptop was filled to the brim with embarrassing and yes, incriminating evidence of financial malfeasance and videotaped debauchery. It was…
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Help Me Decide
Is this video (language not remotely safe for work): a) the most piqant parody of Gen-Z angst ever, or: b) justification for Russia to skip invading Ukraine and just seize New York, California, Washington, Oregon and Massachusetts?
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What’s A Cubit?
Bill Cosby is out of jail: The Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned the indecent assault conviction of Bill Cosby on Wednesday and ordered his release from prison after finding that he was denied protection against self-incrimination. The court said that a prosecutor’s decision not to charge Cosby, 83, in an earlier case opened the door for…
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Hearings
Joe Doakes convenes a meeting of the Immigration Integration Advisory Task Force, via email: C: This session of the Immigration Integration Advisory Task Force will come to order. The Secretary will call the roll: S: Madam Chairman . . . C: Excuse me. I find that offensive. I prefer a gender-neutral title. S: Certainly Madame…
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Frustration
Joe Dokes from Como Park emails: Dear Diary: Today was a frustrating milestone — 15,000 consecutive days of living in a home where a firearm is present, and not a single person shot. Not one! What Am I Doing Wrong? Why don’t I fit in? No wonder the young people in North Minneapolis don’t want…
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Unsportsmanlike Conduct
Chris Kluwe potentially kicks open a Pandora’s Box. Given Chris Kluwe’s love of role-playing board games, it shouldn’t surprise that his latest actions have more angles than 23-sided dice. On Tuesday, former Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe was demanding that the team, through the law firm of Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi L.L.P, release the six-month…
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Bob and Carol & Jane & Alice
A narrow national majority favors same-sex marriage. Will that majority favor a plurality? When it comes to debating social issues, the “slippery slope” argument often holds the least amount of traction. As Minnesota was racked by contentious debate surrounding last year’s marriage amendment, one of the litany of debate volleys was that opening the door…
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Occupy Vatican
Most observers, Catholic or not, recognized the sea-change brought about by Pope Francis I. An Argentinian Cardinal, Francis supposed a move left for the Catholic Church from the days of Pope Benedict XVI and John Paul II. While Francis hasn’t shocked many with his bending on social issues, his most boisterous attacks have been on…
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Fits and Starts
The debate over the future of Jerry Kill’s tenure at the U of M gets seized by political correctness. The scene last Saturday at TCF Bank Stadium was tragically familiar – the Minnesota Golden Gophers head coach lying down, surrounded by medical staff, the victim yet again of his epileptic condition. It was the fourth…
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Filtered for His Pleasure
With the clocking ticking closer to midnight on his mayoral legacy, Michael Bloomberg is banning as fast as he can. In the era of “Yes, We Can,” Michael Bloomberg has long staked his legacy on “No, You Can’t.” In the soon-to-be 12 years since he became Gotham’s Technocrat-in-Chief, Bloomberg has managed to ban, or try…
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No una oportunidad, los Republicanos
The GOP’s new motto on immigration reform? Yo quiero pander…to all sides of the debate: Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told Politico that he’s open to giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship in exchange for a temporary moratorium on all legal immigration while they “assimilate.” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a longtime proponent of reform, said…
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Race to the Bottom
The media begins to chum the political waters for race-baiting. There was little doubt that race was one of the larger underlying narratives of the 2008 presidential campaign. The election of the country’s first African-American president, by the largest popular vote margin in twenty years, was widely hailed by Barack Obama’s supporters as a sign…