“Ugh, this goes on for twelve more minutes.” – Krusty the Klown One of the perpetually fascinating aspects of popular culture is the way that something from any one of its constantly bubbling sub-genres can occasionally boil over and demand truly widespread attention. For example, ours is a time rife with talent shows, but only [...]
Archive for August 2011
“Louie” Is Mediocre
Damn Your Facts, Pretend Harder!
“Hey, I am no longer illiterate.” – Mayor Quimby There’s a decent case to be made that the criminalization and constant demonization of certain kids of recreational drug use is the biggest problem facing the United States. It’s an enormous drag on our economy, locking up hundreds of thousands of otherwise perfectly law abiding and [...]
No News Is No News Is No News
“And meanwhile, Craig’s show is getting a fifty-seven.” – Mr. Meryl “Craig’s show?” – Stan Marsh “What is that butthole doing now?” – Eric Cartman “Oh, it’s brilliant. It’s all just video footage of animals, close up with a wide angle lens.” – Mr. Meryl When it comes to reporting climate change, there are basically [...]
A La Carte Starts to Take Shape
“Do you have the expressed written consent of ABC Sports and the National Football League?” – FBI Agent “Just ABC.” – Peter Griffin Consumer groups have long lobbied for cable and satellite television providers to offer “a la carte” channel options instead of the big subscription packages that have been the industry’s model since forever. [...]
Pining For Their Perfect Ex
“Kinda sucks though. I mean, you are never gonna find a chick that hot again.” – Peter Griffin Ostentatious Texan Rick Perry has been a declared presidential candidate for about 120 hours now. In that time he has managed to stick his foot in his mouth on a remarkable number of subjects, most prominently by [...]
History May Not Take Sides, But American Culture Does
“And that’s what’s wrong with Bart’s generation. Now, as for your generation . . .” – Abe “Grampa” Simpson On Friday, Sociological Images had one of those too-cute-by-half academic debates about whether or not you can actually say that gay marriage opponents are “on the wrong side of history”. History, after all, covers a lot [...]
Shit Happens
“Uh, God, hi, Bill Watson, I, uh, live in the Clark Building. I have a question. If you’re so good, why do you allow bad things to happen?” – Bill Watson As the economy sputters, the political class ignores it, and sage commentators despair, there has been a minor boom in the production of news-ish [...]
The Sacred Cow Is Bleeding
“Marge, I’ve figured out an alternative to giving up my beer. Basically, we become a family of traveling acrobats.” – Homer Simpson “I don’t think you’ve thought this through.” – Marge Simpson On Friday, Glenn Greenwald performed his usual (and vital) service of stripping away the daily ephemera and sporting aspects of our political conversation [...]
