For those who used to follow me on this blog, it's clear I haven't been here for awhile.  I have a new blog called Last of the Analogue Kids at http://notesonageneration.wordpress.com/.  Swing by and check it out if you feel so inclined.  Read full post »

When I was a kid growing up I wanted to be a cartoonist.  My hero was pretty much Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes, one of the funniest and most brilliantly drawn comic strips ever to grace American newspapers.  Then I chucked it all and decided I wanted/… Read full post »

America is the greatest country on Earth.  Or so we're repeatedly told from our very earliest consciousness.  In school, by our parents, by our elders in general, by anyone and everyone, from pretty much the time we are born.  We recite the Pledge of Allegiance everyday in school.&nbs/… Read full post »

Despite my best efforts to get some reading done this morning at Starbucks before work, a peculiar brand of human theater two tables over couldn’t help but distract me.  Those accustomed to trying to read in a public place know all too well what I’m talking about, that inescapable a/… Read full post »

So after weeks of sitting on my to read pile, I’ve finally gotten to Chuck Klosterman’s new book of essays Eating The Dinasour.  In his first piece “Something Instead of Nothing” he examines an interesting point which, I think helps shed light on our contemporary ob/… Read full post »

Imagine sitting at a cafe, enjoying a steaming cup of joe, when a complete stranger strides up to your table, sits down, and begins to unload a torrent of awkwardly personal information about themselves to you.  That should certainly be grounds for at least a measure of protest.  Not that/… Read full post »

A couple of things have happened lately which sent back to that iconic tract for all budding existential philosophers known as Fear and Trembling.  For those unaware (seriously?) Fear and Trembling is an examination on faith, religious anxiety, and the nature of humanity by one Johannes de sile… Read full post »

Sitting around the house during my free time just doesn’t do it for me.  I don’t know, maybe I have Gypsy blood, or too much wanderlust, but I just do not like being cooped up at the old homestead.  Especially after a long day at the computer working.  There was/… Read full post »

Can’t you just feel all of that bipartisan love lately?  Yes I’m being deeply sarcastic which, if cable news is to be believed, is pretty much a sign of the times.  Just watching the response on last week’s state of the union address is a lesson in bipartisan interpretati/… Read full post »

America has become a nation of crack addicts.  Okay, yes, of course I’m being figurative, but still.  While most of us aren’t addicted to crack, we are addicts of a kind, and have been for a long time.  Essentially our m.o. for the last half century has been to exchange/… Read full post »

Watching the tragic events unfold in Haiti, I can’t help but wonder why we as human beings ever pursue things like art or literature when so many people lack things as basic as food and water.  Beyond Haiti, there are over one billion people on this Earth living in the/… Read full post »

It probably doesn’t stir up much controversy these days to say that rock music has its tires stuck in the mud.  At least as far as main stream rock, although I can’t say I find indie rock, whatever that means anymore, to be much better.  The White Stripes, Kings of/… Read full post »

So, how many wars should the United States be fighting?  Judging by S.E. Cupp’s Daily News column yesterday, at least nine.  The thrust of her piece was on the misdirection of beefing up airport security rather than attacking terrorism at its source.  On this point, I/… Read full post »

It should come as no surprise that a journalist’s favorite topic of late is the future of journalism.  Bleak matters for certain.  What is surprising though is how few are speaking, or writing, on the future of journalists.  Assuming blind optimism for a moment, that journalists/… Read full post »

*Note to reader:  This is a much longer piece than usual.  Hopefully the payoff is worth it, but I just wanted to warn you and preempt any comments about how long it is.  

Film actors as a species are often schizophrenic.  Not in the mental illness sort of way,/… Read full post »

Last night I happened to catch Laura Ingraham engaging with Sean Hannity in Fox News’ nightly Global Warming is Bunk polemic.  Her position, natch, is a world conspiracy against American quality of life and a hoax of monumental proportions.  Trying to wrap my mind around Fox’s/… Read full post »

For anyone who’s been alive since the 1980’s, it comes as no surprise that our perception of sub-Saharan Africa has largely been determined by Sally Struthers.  Who can forget the “for the price of a cup of coffee” commercials and the images of children, flies, and hunge/… Read full post »

Republicans are hoping for a big year in 2010, a sort of 1994 redux in terms of House and Senate seats, but they are going to need a lot more than mere anti-Obama rhetoric if they hope to claim the White House in 2012.  Right now, the party is languishing/… Read full post »

The Government wants to steal your money, kick your dog, and knock up your daughter.  Trust me, just because I’m being paid to say it doesn’t mean it isn’t true.  Or so should be the new conservative media slogan.  If you’ve slogged through any of the programmi/… Read full post »

With the holiday shopping season upon us, Americans are holding their collective breaths for an economic turnaround, but one statistic suggests that more tough times are ahead.  According to the Labor Dept., the unemployment number for Americans aged 16-24 is now over 53%, the highest it’/… Read full post »

Remember that golden age when cat eating aliens could be your neighbor?  Or how about when an idealistic immigrant from Mypos could move into an apartment in Chicago with his high strung cousin?  Remember when Denise made a wacky shirt for Theo.  Believe it or not, there was a time/… Read full post »

I’ll admit I haven’t read the book yet, although I’d like to, but I’ve been keeping up with the press on Jonathan Safron Foer’s new book “Eating Animals,” an investigation on the ethics of factory farms and eating meat.  For an animal lover, the mo/… Read full post »

As a writer and journalist, I have long valued the journalistic creed of objectivity.  I tend to think that the idea of the liberal media bias exists because most journalists have liberal arts educations where left leaning views are often fostered.  However, for a good journalist the goal/… Read full post »

Religion has been a thorny issue roughly since the time Abraham began wandering through the desert with his wife Sarah, uncovering in his travels that first real sense of the human tendency towards tribalism.  Or, if you prefer, it’s been an issue since Zeus started having sex with everyt/… Read full post »

The recent media standoff between the Obama White House and Fox News may make for good copy for the conservative cable station, but the precedent being set for free speech is far more odious--essentially it’s say what you want, unless I don’t like what you say.  First Amen/… Read full post »