The morning after Steve Jobs died, I watched a usual Morning Joe panel step far outside its sweet spot and try to eulogize Jobs’ impact. Joe Nocera was pretty effective, mostly because he had paid close attention to Jobs and Apple, and Willie Geist was at least in touch with the culture. But Joe, Mika, …
For a long time now I’ve been saying that the readers of the world have to step up and defend the value of the written word. Don’t be didactic, but by all means, be a little bit elitist. When your friends start talking about Dancing with the Stars, talk about a book or magazine article …
In The Atlantic, Jared Keller has assembled a rather brainy slide show–a collection of literary references in The Simpsons. Many of my favorites are here, including Jonathan Franzen and Michael Chambon, George Plimpton, Gore Vidal, Robert Caro, The New Yorker, Tom Wolfe, The Economist, and William L. Shirer.Somehow Keller missed the episde in which Lisa …
In The Washington Post today, Matt Miller argues for the need for a third party. “There’s a staggering void in the debate,” he writes. “The parties act this way because their core constituencies have a stake in a failed status quo. But where does that leave the majority of us who are not in the …
Occasioned by the premiere of The Playboy Club on NBC and Pan Am on ABC, the folks at the Canadian Broadcasting Company thought they wanted to talk about the sudden burst of nostalgia for the sixties, and invited me to appear on their prime time talk show Connect with Mark Kelly, to, ah, connect my …
Preach it, Sister Elizabeth Warren, preach it!
A couple of years ago, half paying attention to the ESPN Sunday Night Game of the Week, I noticed that the announcer John Miller kept referring to Mariano Rivera, the peerless closer of the New York Yankees, as “the great Rivera.” I don’t think he meant the words to be capitalized, as though we were …
Paul Ryan, the House Budget Committee Chairman, doesn’t like the Buffet Rule because “It will attack job creators.” John Boehner, the Speaker of the House, says that the administration should stop threatening to raise taxes, and thus “end the uncertainty plaguing job creators.” Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, while opposing tax hikes, says that “The …