I Know It When I See It

Donna’s never been able to sit through a violent movie. She’s fine with the occasional fistfight or car crash in an action thriller … I’m not saying she’s strictly G-rated … but movies that glorify violence, or that are based on violence and not much else, are not her thing. Maybe I’m just going through […]

You Can’t Read That!

You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring news about banned and challenged books. Apparently the problem some Americans have with Huckleberry Finn affects Belgians as well.  They were actually going to ban a Tintin book written in 1931 on grounds of racism … thankfully, a court has intervened. The manager of a Michigan […]

A Post w/Minimal Kardashian Content

I haven’t been keeping up with the news, what with company and road trips and the standard family competition for the TV at night, so yesterday, after our company left and things were quiet again, I called up Mediaite. Foolish me. The first ten entries all had to do with Herman Cain.  Like a prude […]

Birthday & Road Trip Photoblogging

It’s my birthday.  This one’s a millstone milestone: the big 65.  When I was a child, I looked up Halley’s Comet in the encyclopedia and figured out that I would be 40 when it came again in 1986 … unimaginably far in the future, and thinking of myself as a 40-year-old man was equally unimaginable […]

An Update from 99% Land

What’s new? An Australian friend from Perth, traveling around the States on a two-month sojourn, dropped by to spend the weekend. Since John’s a fellow Hash House Harrier I took him hashing Saturday night. The hash started an hour late and trail took two and a half hours to finish, and of course we went […]

Paul’s DVD Reviews

“I checked the list of people I trust and your name ain’t on it.” — Matthew McConaughey as Mick Haller in The Lincoln Lawyer The Piano Teacher (2001, France) A tense, dark, disturbing movie about a repressed woman with sexual needs she doesn’t know how to satisfy. Hoo boy, this is an uncomfortable movie to […]

I Know What I’m Mad About … Don’t You?

This old-school political cartoon nails it: The media ignored the Occupy Wall Street protest for almost two weeks and only reluctantly began to cover it when it became impossible not to in the wake of YouTube videos of police brutality, and … of far greater importance … the presence of celebrities among the protesters.  Once […]

Missing Buckwheat

Just back from my Tuesday morning bicycle ride, a 12.5 mile loop through neighborhoods near my house.  When I ride from home I take one of two routes, both mapped out so that I get 9-10 miles in before stopping at the coffee shop 2.5 miles south of here.  I’m one of those people who […]