To all those “news avoiders”

“The water I drink, the food I eat, the clothes I wear, the bed I sleep on, are all determined by politics, good or bad. Politics is about power and…

Slipping into Solipsism

Rand Paul strapped on a pair of opaque ideological blinders when he posited that Eric Garner died because of taxes. Seriously, he must have matching black holes swirling two inches…

A War on “Casual Violence”

Let be known on this date, and for ten years hereafter, the phrase “casual violence” is heretofore stricken from usage in the English-speaking world. No longer will embryonic Nabokovs carry…

The Confused Kryptonian

There are some good parts to Man of Steel, but overall the movie stands on some really shaky reasoning. For one, if Jor-El’s consciousness controls Zod’s ship, why doesn’t he…

Cheerios Appreciation Day…?

As we approach the first anniversary of Chick-fil-A appreciation day, when right-wingers boasted their bona fides by tweeting pics of fast-food orgies, another large corporation – General Mills – is…

Inundated with Similes

Karen Russell makes excessive use of similes throughout her book Swamplandia!, at least in the first half. Some are clever or insightful, such as “We were watching the small TV…

Changing Places

E-books, tablets, iPads, they are flipping the concept of an ending. With DVDs and Blu-rays and VOD, all movies now have trackers, slide bars, countdowns, to tell you when the…

Meta-ambivalence

Creating a sense of ambivalence within a show is generally a quality of a good show, with good writing, good acting, etc. But what about meta-ambivalence? In “The Walking Dead,”…