It’s finally here, the biggest day of the Republican Presidential Primary season. Today, Republicans in 10 states go to the polls to pick who will represent the party in the general election in the fall. To say the race thus far has been interesting would be an understatement. It has been dazzling. Watching the fortunes of the ‘anyone but Mitt’ candidates wax and wane like the cycles of the moon has been nothing short of riveting. Rick Perry: gone. Herman Cain: gone. Michele Bachmann: gone. Donald Fucking Trump: GONE. And now, only four men remain. Continue reading “Oval Office Thunderdome: Soopah Tooosday!!!!”
New York Times? We Need to Talk.
I come from a family of journalists. My mother is an editor, has been at the Akron Beacon Journal in one capacity or another for 40 years, and has taught journalism at Kent State University. Before he died, my father also worked at the Beacon, also taught journalism at Kent, and spent the last 20 years of his life editing on the foreign/national desk at the Philadelphia Inquirer. My great-grandmother was a longtime reporter for both the Beacon and The Independent in Massillon, Ohio. Needless to say, I respect and appreciate the newspaper business. This respect leads me to support the business even in its decline. Continue reading “New York Times? We Need to Talk.”
Shitty Movie Ideas: Out of This World
I was in a bar after work on Friday. They had a television tuned to CMT, and it was showing Son in Law, a shitty movie from the 1990s starring Pauly Shore. Do not worry, this is not a review of Son in Law. Yes, I will watch any movie, no matter how bad, for a long enough time to write a review, but there was no sound on in the bar, and I wasn’t watching the movie anyway. I mention it merely for context, because it gave me an idea. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Ideas: Out of This World”
Cocksuckers Ball: Obama Picks a Fight
Last week, President Obama made a bold move. By making four recess appointments, including naming Richard Corbray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, while the Senate is still in pro forma session, Obama is directly challenging legislative shenanigans designed exclusively for obstructionism. Continue reading “Cocksuckers Ball: Obama Picks a Fight”
The Empty Balcony: Predator
Predator is everything a 1980s action movie ought to be. It’s loud, overwrought, over-roided, and filled with cliché and blinding amounts of muzzle flash. All the characters are macho, carved out of wood, and traverse their fictional universe with names like Dutch! Dillion! Mac! Pancho! Blain! Hawkins! and...Billy. I’m surprised there wasn’t a character named ‘Duke’ in there somewhere. Oh, wait. Actor Bill Duke plays ‘Mac.’ Close enough. Continue reading “The Empty Balcony: Predator”
The Iraq War Is Over
This past weekend, the last American troops crossed the border from Iraq into Kuwait. It has been almost nine years since the invasion of Iraq commenced in March of 2003, much of it passing through the same spot on the border the troops crossed on their way home. The costs of the war have been measured and reported, to the point they have become abstractions. 4,800 American and coalition dead, somewhere around 30,000 belligerents dead, over 100,000 civilians dead, and over $800 billion drained from the national coffers. It was a war of choice begun on false pretenses. We toppled a toothless dictator at enormous cost to ourselves in the form of lives, treasure, moral standing, and freedoms at home. We destabilized a region of the world hardly known for its rigidity, and emboldened Iran, one of our more consistent enemies. Continue reading “The Iraq War Is Over”
Trimming The Fat
There was an interesting debate on the letters page of the New York Times Sunday Review section. The ongoing gridlock in the congressional debt panel has opened the door for all sorts of suggestions on where to cut money from the Pentagon’s budget. It all began with a letter from Lawrence J. Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and went from there. Interestingly, there wasn’t a single letter published that argues for either maintaining or increasing current spending levels. People know a raw deal when they see one. Continue reading “Trimming The Fat”
Oval Office Thunderdome: “Nobody Loves Me, It’s True…”
With a little under a year remaining before the general election, GOP voters are soon going to have to get serious and pick a candidate. For months now, the mantle of frontrunner has passed from Mitt Romney to Michele Bachmann back to Romney to Rick Perry to Romney again to Herman Cain and back to Romney, with Newt Gingrich’s once dead campaign showing signs of life. Polls aren’t votes. What is known is the GOP base does not seem to want Mitt Romney to be their candidate, but no other credible party member has chosen to throw their hat in the ring. Romney should be able to wait out the rest of the fools in this circus and get the nod to run against President Obama. Continue reading “Oval Office Thunderdome: “Nobody Loves Me, It’s True...””
Shitty Movie Sundays: Escape from L.A.
From IMDb’s trivia page on Escape from L.A.: Escape from LA [sic] was caught in development hell for over ten years. A script for the film was first commissioned in 1985 but John Carpenter thought it “too light, too campy.”
Too campy? Why? Were The Riddler and Two-Face in the original draft? I find it hard to believe that Carpenter rejected a script for this film because it was campy. This movie lives on camp. It’s not light, though. I’ll give Carpenter that. Escape from L.A. is a violent flick. A bit cartoonish, maybe, but that many bullets can’t be fired in a movie and still be considered light. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Escape from L.A.”
Cocksuckers Ball: What A Bunch of Clowns
Part of the debt deal that was enacted this year requires that a Congressional committee has to find $1.2 trillion to cut from the federal budget over ten years. If the committee cannot come to an agreement by November 23rd, and both houses can’t pass the recommendations by December 23rd, then $1 trillion worth of cuts are automatically implemented. Half of that amount would come from the Pentagon. Fearing that their organizations are about to take a healthy hit in their pocketbooks, a whole host of generals, admirals, secretaries, and under secretaries have been testifying on Capitol Hill recently about the dire consequences which would result from any cuts to military budgets. Congressmen, but especially Republicans, are listening, and a few are preparing legislation that would exempt the Pentagon from the automatic cuts should the debt committee fail in their task. This is just too damned rich. Continue reading “Cocksuckers Ball: What A Bunch of Clowns”