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Pop Politico: Spare Change
Presidential campaigns, like marketing campaigns, have to have a sellable theme. Something that sounds snappy and connects with voters/consumers so they will act (i.e., vote for a candidate or buy a certain product). Whether
Read More »Political Culture: The Bush Administration’s Funny Games
Py Korry’s excellent piece the other day about the John Woo torture memo got me thinking about, of all things, a movie trailer that I saw repeatedly over the holidays while haunting the local
Read More »Sugar Water: The Adventure Continues …
Sequels aren’t always good, but the movie-loving teenager who continues to take up space inside my soul will always be excited by them, especially the mere concept of sequels, i.e. “more of what you
Read More »Pop Politico: “Master and Servant”
A news item broke late Friday that was quite novel for political retribution stories. Lawyers representing Jose Padilla – the guy who was locked up in a Navy brig for 3 1/2 years as
Read More »Political Culture: Colbert/Stewart ’08 — Now More Than Ever
Forget Times Square, forget the BCS, forget Iowa, forget Dave and Jay’s returns last Wednesday: 2008 officially gets underway Monday night, when Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert return to Comedy Central. How they’ll fare
Read More »Political Culture: Will Hollywood Matter in 2008?
“Who cares what I think? I’m not the president. I’m just a storyteller, man.” So says Bob Dylan — or, at least, Cate Blanchett as Jude Quinn as Bob Dylan — in Todd Haynes’
Read More »Sugar Water: I Believe the Children Are Our Inarticulate Future
I’m a little angry today. I wish I wasn’t. After all, it’s a new year. A chance to put aside the previous year’s disappointments, setbacks, frustrating failures, endlessly escalating arguments, sunlight-devouring grudges, and temporarily
Read More »Writers on Fire: the Writers Guild Strike and the Malibu Wildfires
On Friday morning, driving down Olympic, I noticed that the marine layer was conspicuously thick and gray. I had been out of town for the fires last month, so I was a bit slow
Read More »Radio Nowhere: Is Clear Channel Sandbagging the Boss’ New Album?
It was recently reported (by Fox News, of all places) that Clear Channel radio stations had been instructed not to play tracks from Bruce Springsteen’s new album, Magic. It’s been impossible to ignore all
Read More »Justifying Your Citizenship in the Red Sox Nation
Why am I rooting for the Red Sox in the World Series? Because I grew up in New England. That should be all there is to it, right? I could spin tales about spending
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