Author: dumpster

  • “One Nation, Under Me…”

    Among comics/comix fans, Bill Keane’s “Family Circus” is considered so blandly inoffensive as to be beneath ridicule. But I can’t let Sunday’s strip pass without comment. It begins with the adorable tow-headed kid (Jeffy?) waking up and telling Mom, “Wow! I dreamed that God was saying the Pledge of Allegiance!” Then, in the second and…

  • Color Theory: “Red America” and “Red Dawn”

    Edgewise readers are probably familiar with the story of the Washington Post Online’s new right-wing blog, “Red America,” written by a 24-year-old sometime Republican speechwriter named Ben Domenech, who also runs the RedState.org site. Various writers at Daily Kos & eslewhere have detailed the various aspects that make his hiring so egregious — that a…

  • Appearance of Conflict of Interest

    That’s a concept we’re hearing a a lot about lately: Over the weekend the Comical ran a WaPo story reporting that the EPA’s Inspector General says there is no such thing as quid pro quo: The inspector general’s yearlong review of the EPA’s writing of a rule to manage shop towels contaminated with toxic chemicals…

  • Call Me a Shabbas Goy, But…

    This kind of thing turns my stomach: rove was just singing to the choir– curious group of people, look at the names alot of Jews must have been a strategy session I found it on the Huffington Post in a thread on off-the-record remarks by Karl Rove. The post, which I’ve quoted in full, is…

  • Wanting to Get to the Bottom of It

    The very next Q&A in the press conference xian links to below is also a prize specimen of weasel-wordedness: Q Two questions. First, you’ve said in the past that, on the matter of Matt Cooper and Judith Miller that the President supports the investigation. What specific steps is the White House taking to support it?…

  • The Pro-Life Party: Us, Goddammit!

    “Are you pro-life or pro-choice?” “Yes.” That’s not an original “joke,” but it’s one that bears repeating. This morning on Democracy Now, Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez were interviewing a woman from NOW and a man from the Democratic Senatorial (?) Council about the latter group’s policy of encouraging pro-choice senatorial hopefuls to step aside…

  • Life, Death, and Entertainment Culture

    Like the old Bill Murray character on SNL, I haven’t actually seen this year’s nominee, but I’m going to write about it anyway. According to this piece from Chicago Reader, Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby apparently endorses its main character’s assisted suicide after she becomes paralyzed (and takes some implausible-sounding plotting to get to that…

  • Wishing the President Well

    Gary Hart’s op-ed “The restoration of a mythical golden age” concludes by striking just the right balance between the degree of respect that any president is due ex officio and that which this president has actually earned: “Despite all this, people of goodwill must wish George Bush well and hope that his hubris will be…

  • The Sad Death of Spencer Dryden

    I’m old enough to remember when the Airplane ruled San Francisco and rocked my adolescent world, but I confess I barely noticed Spencer Dryden’s drumming between the trebly distortion of Jorma’s guitar and Grace’s Icy Bitch Goddess persona. But this post isn’t about my taste in popular music. Reading through the fan tributes in the…

  • Now that we’ve lost…

    Where do we go from here? How do we begin to reclaim secular democracy? The most disheartening thing I’m hearing on all the networks is that “moral issues” rather than economic issues were the deciding factor. How can we possibly convince American voters – over the next decade or two, for it will surely take…

  • Quote of the Day

    From Molly Ivins: “Sometimes, I get the feeling the whole country is being run by Paris Hilton.”

  • From the Washington Times, no less

    Found this on the redoubtable Buzzflash. Considering the source, Arnaud de Borchgrave of the Washington Times, it’s a remarkably cogent summary of the situation. Also a little off-message, especially the bullet point that “the war on terror” is a political fiction – “a misnomer tantamount to rhetorical disinformation.” Bleepin’ A, Arnie!