Too long; do not read.
People used to talk about a “third rail of American politics” — a topic so volatile, so controversial, so untouchable that even to discuss it publicly was career suicide. The third rail was simply a settled matter, and no matter where you stood on it, no matter where your party’s …
Hi there! Welcome to my annual May Day sermon. Let’s keep it simple this time: the rich are the scum of the Earth in every country, as G.K. Chesterton correctly said even though he didn’t mean it, and the guillotine is too good for them. Every single billionaire on Earth …
This last month saw two significant items come up on the primary ballot in my home state of Illinois. One was a non-binding ballot question concerning whether or not the state should develop a plan to legalize marijuana for recreational use; the other asked whether or not the governor should …
Armando Iannucci makes deeply political comedies that are not actually at politics at all. This is not the only good thing about his latest project, The Death of Stalin, such a remarkable thing, but it is perhaps what makes it a great film and it’s definitely what saves it from being …
As noted when we talked about John Merriman’s Massacre: The Life and Death of the Paris Commune, my reading project for this year, where the only nonfiction I read will be about the Paris Commune of 1871 and the French revolts of May 1968, will begin at the end. Massacre, while an …
Let’s preface this review by discussing something that made me feel older than anything else has in my entire life: When Straight Outta Compton was released in 2015, AARP — the American Association of Retired Persons — nominated it for “Best Intergenerational Film” and “Best Time Capsule”. This means three things: …
After a seemingly endless hiatus of two entire years, during which this beleaguered country’s weekly exposure to abnormally cheerful handsomeness golem Ryan “Toothpaste” Seacrest plummeted by as much as 30%, American Idol is back! Yes, that’s right, a new reboot/remake/re-release of the original big daddy of televised singing competitions has returned, …
Mass shootings are now as prevalent as NFL games in the United States; even when there isn’t one happening, they’re all anyone can talk about. (Both are also responsible for horrible and easily preventable injuries and only exist to like the pockets of the already rich, but let’s not run …
Tonight’s blog entry, which ought to be a relatively simple movie review, is one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to write, which is in itself is illustrative of how thorny cultural criticism has become in late-stage capitalism. The reasons for this are manifold and all worth exploring: …
Look. Politics isn’t easy. It’s terribly difficult, enormously frustrating, full of compromise and defeat. And even though it’s subtle and complex, suffused with gray areas and uncertainty, we still have to define it by its ability to conform to four sections of a lazily drawn grid. We understand. We are …
Paul Kingsnorth, it’s safe to say, is a man of special talent. His work with the Dark Mountain Project — one of the only cultural movements to take seriously the concept of a post-human world — and his insightful environmental journalism alone would be enough to establish his brilliance and …
Stephen King adaptations, as my friend Scott Von Doviak can tell you, are a real mixed bag. When you’re the best-selling author since Johnny Bible, though, everything you write is eventually going to find its way to the big screen, sometimes more than once. The holiday season saw the release …
Brothers! From the Levant I send you greetings, and convey to you the blessings of Allah against the infidel, the invader, and the apostate. I also bring you stamps, as requested, and some of that berry-flavored sparkling water Riad really likes. Riad, this was not easy to find, and you …
This year, I made the decision that all the non-fiction I would read would be about two events, separated by a century but bonded in the blood: the Paris Commune of 1871 and the revolts that spread across France in May of 1968. Both are events that have had a …
There have been a number of films lately — and are likely to be more, as I continue to get older and things I think of as happening in the not-too-distant past become ancient history — in which things are fictionally re-created that I remember as vivid memories. Nothing really …
