Random Kvetching

I feel like kvetching.  How about you? Is National Public Radio going corporate?  Ever since NPR started airing commercials (although they call them “sponsor notices”), their talk shows have become noticably Fair & Balanced™.  I’m thinking specifically about the Diane Rehm Show, where, whenever she discusses politics or national policy, her guest list now invariably includes […]

Big Brother is Slipping

Everybody’s seen Easy Rider, right? So Donna and I were flipping through channels the other night, and we caught the last half hour of Easy Rider on American Movie Classics.  Something struck me as really odd, and I’m wondering if anyone else saw the same thing. There’s Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and the two prostitutes in […]

Pickled . . . in Spaaace!

Report Uncovers Astronauts’ Heavy Alcohol Use. Oh my.  Here’s what I read between the lines of the linked article: NASA, in the wake of the Lisa Nowak incident, has been busy hunting witches in the astronaut program.  Astronaut pilots, astronaut mission specialists, and astronaut flight surgeons are turning on each other.  It must be a horrible […]

Hotter Saturday Blogging

My God, we started our Saturday morning bike ride at 6:30 and were toast by 8:00, with a few miles still to go.  But we gutted it out to the end, then sat outdoors . . . albeit under patio umbrellas . . . at our local coffee shop.  My one concession to the heat was drinking […]

Osama’s Still on the Loose . . . Ooh, it’s Paris Hilton!

Paris Hilton sat in a cell, Paris Hilton felt rather unwell, All her great fortune and lawyerly men, Couldn’t spring Paris Hilton again. Hah! So there! Justice is served! Still, something about this morality play makes me feel . . . well, manipulated.  Aren’t there other, more important people who should be in jail?  While we focus […]

Homicidal Maniacs

I was hoping something would happen to shift the media’s attention away from Imus.  Another Britney meltdown, a runaway bride, something like that.  But nothing like the horrific shootings at Virginia Tech. In the wake of the Columbine High School shootings, it became more difficult for kids to be different, at least in dark ways.  […]

My One & Only Imus Post

Could there possibly be a scrap of flesh left on Imus’ bones?  Apparently so, because the media’s still munching on ’em.  If the British press, with its fixation on the Royals, weren’t even worse than ours, I’d be embarrassed to be an American. Shame on every newsperson and news outlet that gave the story more […]

The Dumbing Down of Virtually Everything (Part VI)

One tries to ignore pop culture, but it seeps through.  Now Maine lobster and Chad have joined forces with the Ma Na Ma Na song to take over my brain. A seafood chain (Red Lobster, or is it Joe’s Crab Shack?) is advertising Maine lobster tail.  Say what?  What happened to the claws, antennae, head, body, and […]