I’ve always been interested in how issues are framed. Many political issues are framed in specific ways by their proponents, and eventually it becomes difficult to see the issue in anyway but how it’s been framed for so long. In the long-running abortion debate, abortion foes used “partial birth” as a way to frame the [...]
I’m an elitist populist. I believe democracy is the best form of government, but it’s insanely important to have checks in that government to protect (and even foster) minority opinions. This is because we are incredibly and eternally stupid, stupid people. We believe all sorts of very dumb things, no matter how smart and reasonable [...]
Pat Robertson endorses Rudy Giuliani. What a meeting of the weasels. A lot of coverage of this points out that Robertson says that American gays and liberals caused the 9/11 attack, which goes against Giuliani’s message of “Terra Terra Terra! Muslims! Only I can protect you! Even though I didn’t before! Look over there! Brown [...]
My older, fatter cat, Jinx, likes to play this game where she gets under the bed-sheets and turns over onto her back, with all four paws sticking up, making a deadly tent of cat fury. She waits for a hand to “attack” her in this position, and she grabs it with her front paws, rakes [...]
Last night, I heard “Run Like Hell,” by Pink Floyd, on the radio. This, sadly, is not an uncommon occurrence. Applying the pop-poseur rule, “Run Like Hell” is a poseur‘s song on The Wall. It is a step above the crowd-pleasing “Comfortably Numb,” but not quite at the true-fan level of “In the Flesh?” let’s [...]
This isn’t a line drawn in the sand. I like when people are helpful, so the last thing I want to do is discourage helpfulness. But sometimes, being too helpful becomes a burden. Recently, I had a print job that I handed off to a company through an online uploader. The uploader had a preview [...]
There’s a silly public access program that’s repeated often late night on cable. The title of the series is The (Not So) Hidden Agenda. I’ve watched snippets of two different episodes, but both the episodes are repeated over and over again, so I assume that this series is mad up entirely of two hour-long episodes. [...]
Here’s logic I’ll never understand: When a horrific crime is reported, the media ask, “Are our laws tough enough?” This is one of those knee-jerk reactions that fall apart on any amount of scrutiny. In particular, I’m thinking of Karen Fisher who was arrested for killing Monsignor William Costello, last July, while driving drunk. There [...]
Twenty years ago, my friend Joe and I went to see Roger Waters at Madison Square Garden for the Radio KAOS tour. We had horrible seats high up and at a ninety degree angle to the stage, but, being teenagers, we moved down as far as our bravery would take us. And that wasn’t too [...]
Phew! Russell’s Law of 50% Returns on Comic Adaptations holds true. Bad news for X-Men III perhaps, but V for Vendetta was fantastic. I enjoyed it while watching it, and I left the movie theater excited, eager to talk about the differences between the comic and the movie, which, except for two minor cases*, actually [...]
