Lots of coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings, but the media can’t provide the context or analysis to give it meaning or relevance other than as a random act of cruelty and tragedy.
Outsourced
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Corporations that outsourced jobs from the U.S. to Mexico to China in search of low wage employees are now off to Cambodia. Where next?
44
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What if Jackie Robinson who broke the color barrier of mahor league baseball, played as lamely as Obama?
Unsophisticated
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Will your massacre get 24/7 media coverage? Depends where it is and who carries it out.
A Twisted Path to Citizenship
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Immigration reform: it’s not amnesty, it’s “path to citizenship” – in other words, amnesty plus a lot of bureaucratic BS.
A Woman President Would Change Everything
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Remember when pro-Obama forces argued that an African-American president would inherently represent radical change? Now pro-Hillary Clinton forces are saying the same thing about a woman president. Will liberals fall for the same line?
Margaret Thatcher RIP
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They say Maggie Thatcher revitalized England’s economy and unleashed market forces. But her legacy is much nastier than that: she destroyed the social contract and the idea that people should help each other.
Roger Ebert, RIP
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So for this week, I’m doing something different.
As usual when a celebrity dies, the passing of Roger Ebert spawned a passel of cheesy obituary cartoons by editorial cartoonists who depict the departed at the pearly gates, enjoying the afterlife. I hate the format and I usually only do them to mock the form or take a really contrarian position on the subject.
This time, I’ve decided to show what the form could be: an opportunity for assessing a life, and its social and political meaning in our culture. Yes, Virginia, it is possible to draw an intelligent obituary cartoon. But is it possible for it to be printed in a newspaper?
No doubt, critic Roger Ebert had a remarkable passion for film. His brutal final cancer years couldn’t crush his enthusiasm for the form. Lost in the misty-eyed remembrances, however, was his awful taste. More than any other film reviewer, Ebert reinforced the hollow sentimentality and arrogant exceptionalism that compose the nasty side of the American character.
P.S. Worth reading.
Pre-Sellouts
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Third parties can’t win because people won’t vote for them because they can’t win because people won’t vote for them.
Coming Out
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Republicans with gay family members are coming out for gay rights, saying that familiarity breeds respect.
