One of the best TV channels I get on my satellite dish is Trio, which describes itself as "the only pop culture and arts channel." It's actually the "weird stuff" channel with a schedule that includes reruns of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, old Letterman shows from when he was on NBC, music shows, documentaries about […]
Here's William Raspberry with one of the best articles I've read on this whole topic of gay marriage. […]
As I browse the news websites and watch the cable news channels, I get the feeling that the general attitude towards Howard Dean is, "No, no! We don't want this to be over so soon!" I don't think the man has a lock on the Democratic nomination but I think a lot of newsfolks are […]
Here is the text of a very good campaign speech by John Kerry, who is probably not going to be the Democratic nominee for president. And here's a very good speech by Howard Dean, who probably is. Both links are to Salon so if you're not a subscriber, you need to watch some ads. And […]
Libertarian Congressguy Ron Paul discusses the plunging value of the American dollar. […]
A further annoyance about AMC's broadcast of the movie, 48 Hours: Not only was it full of badly-done cuts of naughty words but the schedule was screwed up. It's a 95 minute movie, they put it in a two hour slot, inserted a featurette before it and commercials throughout…and it wound up running two minutes […]
Writer Arie Kaplan is doing a series for Reform Judaism magazine on "How the Jews Created the Comic Book Industry." Which they pretty much did. The first chapter, which I linked to some time ago, can be read here. The second part, which just came out, can be read here. Both include some interesting observations […]
I TiVoed 48 Hours, a movie I liked in theaters, off American Movie Classics and I'm watching it at the moment. Sort of watching it, at least. I forgot when I marked it for recording that A.M.C. has become a pretty awful place to watch movies, what with commercial interruptions and films being "cleaned up" […]
Several political websites are linking to this online page from the current issue of MAD Magazine. I offer it partly for your amusement and partly to point out that MAD has a lot more cojones than it once did. […]
Tim Russert, who I think is a terrible interviewer, had Hillary Clinton and Newt Gingrich on Meet the Press today. Here's the transcript but basically, they both said that while the early stages of the Iraq invasion were masterfully done, we have been botching up the occupation and restructuring in ways that may have dire […]
The first time I read anything written by Leonard Maltin was around 1967 when I picked up a copy of Film Fan Monthly at Larry Edmund's cinema-specialty book shop on Hollywood Boulevard. Leonard was just a baby film maven then but he was already performing invaluable service in extracting film history from those who'd made […]
Never switch midgets on an unruly crowd. […]
Over the next few days, I'm going to be recommending a number of books by friends of mine so you might want to start marking your Amazon wishlist. Today, we praise Looney Tunes: The Ultimate Visual Guide, which is a big, handsome and informative book by Jerry Beck. It's filled with rare artwork of Bugs […]
Here's an example of the kind of cuts that Governor Schwarzenegger is proposing to make in California's spending. […]
The California State Senate rejected Governor Schwarzenegger's proposed $15 billion bond issue, which may be a good thing depending on what anyone comes up with to replace it. In the meantime, he had already reactivated a Gray Davis plan for the state to borrow $10.7 billion. When he was running for the office, Schwarzenegger criticized […]