I just read David Denby's lukewarm review of Spike Lee's Red Hook Summer (subscription required) in which Denby calls the movie a failure but praises Lee as being one of the few filmmakers out there who would ask the kind of question about faith that he posed in the movie.  I haven't seen the movie and don't know that I will.  I don't watch every Spike Lee Joint the way I watch every movie made by Woody Allen.  But I do pay attention to him and some of his earlier films, especiall

I know, I can't quit Thomas Friedman.  But when a below average writer achieves fame and fortune while so many greater talents deal in obscurity, it's annoying.  Particularly when the below average writer makes arguments like "Average Is Over," where he accuses American politicians and citizens of not being up to the task of global competition.
 

In 1973 Marabel Morgan wrote a book called "The Total Woman".  It was a follow-up to her successful "Total Woman" programs, in which Marabel taught women how to be seductive and outwardly submissive so as to get whatever  they wanted from their stern or indifferent husbands, most of whom had chronic roving eyes and/or wallets covered in cobwebs.

The secret, as Eve could have told any one of those wannabe Stepford Wives, was sex.  No, not withholding it, a la the women in Lysistrata, but reveling in it, wallowing in it--in a Godly way, of course--as the very best way to keep your man happy.  (Second best is staying sweet by keeping your mind clear and your mouth shut.)

What a four years it's been.  Back in 2008, after two terms of George W. Bush, I felt overtaken by an impulse to want to upend the entire system and to undo the wrongs of the Aught decade.  Hillary Clinton seemed to me to be the pugilist needed to egt the job done but when it became clear that she would not be selected, I learned to start liking Obama.  Clinton apparently came to the same conclusion and she has been one of the most effective members of her administration.

When Republican Rep. Mike Kelly stood in front of the world and stated that the birth-control mandate was comparable to Sept.11 and the Pearl Harbor attacks, it got people’s attention. This was a true game-changing statement in many ways. Mostly, it changed how we Americans should now compare things.

By refusing to be specific, Mitt Romney has made his tax and budget plans difficult to analyze and, of course, difficult to criticize.  This might be by design though, of course, folks are trying to figure out what the Romney budget would mean for America.  The Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and The Brookings Institution, says that for Romney to cut the corporate tax rate and to cut taxes on high earners, he will have to eliminate deductions that favor the middle class, in effect, raising ta

Being an incredible success in life is something I’ve come to grips with lo these many years. And while I’d like to say that hard work and discipline have taken me to my current staggering heights, we all know that’s a load of nonsense. There is but one reason why I am the successful man I am:

I’m cultured like a son of a bitch.

My dear Daggers, I know it's summer and there's a lot of fun stuff going on.  Why, there's the Olympics and Mitt Romney making an ass of himself overseas and bigots slingin' chicken and what not, but I thought it might be pertinent to highlight how some of the citizens of Anaheim have been enjoying their summer:

Since the terrible and senseless murders in that Aurora movie theater, there's been a lot of talk about how to fight back against a mass shooter. It's become a standard talking point that more guns among the victims would have allowed someone to kill any mass shooter, basic tactical realities notwithstanding. And Houston's Department of Public Safety and Homeland Security has recently released an instructional video called "Run. Hide.

I have been a big fan and user at Twitter for some time and feel it is a social media tool with incredible potential. That said, I’m out. Because of this:

In the Times today, Bill Keller has a longish column about how selfish the Baby Boomers are for wanting their Social Security and their Medicare and even their Medicaid.  I'm not sure why he lumps Medicaid into it, as if poor people have a choice, but he does.  Keller's argument isn't novel.  He links to a Paul Begela Esquire article that made the esthetic anti-boomer case at the turn of the century.  Th

My daughter and I spent much of Friday and Saturday in cosplay at Otakon, but I got to watch some of NBC's Olympic coverage — which in some events seemed more obsessively focused on Americans than ever.

With two games down in the London Olympics, Brazil’s men’s soccer team has looked strong, scoring six goals on its way to two victories. Brazil’s most famous player – young attacker Neymar – is showing why European clubs are drooling over him, scoring twice and setting up two other goals.

Lately I've been hearing from certain friends that Obamacare is EVIL.  They're hearing it, they say, from their doctors, and I have to believe they're telling me the truth.  I don't understand why any doctor would favor health care profiteers over a plan--watered down as it may be--that at least makes an attempt to bring some relief to health care abuses, but my own dentist seems to be one of them.  He objects to Obamacare for reasons he didn't make entirely clear, but since he was railing against it while puttering around with a drill deep inside my tooth, I wasn't much for talking about i

Athletes, especially Olympians, are to be seen and not heard, or even read. Remember when Crash Davis explains the perfect sports interview to Nuke Laloosh?

Davis: You're gonna have to learn your clichés. You're gonna have to study them, you're gonna have to know them. They're your friends. Write this down: "We gotta play it one day at a time." 

LaLoosh: Got to play... it's pretty boring. 

Davis: 'Course it's boring, that's the point. Write it down.

Interesting action in the Senate today.  The Republican plan to extend the Bush-era tax rates for everyone failed and the Democratic plan to extend them for all household income up to $250,000 a year succeeded*.  Now the House is expected not to vote on, or to vote down the Democratic proposal and will likely pass the Republican one.  The bill will then go to the Senate, where Reid and company will replace it with the Democratic plan that the Senate passed and send it back to the House.