Last night I flipped on Turner Classic Movies for a half hour after returning from participating in a revered Christmas Eve and Christmas tradition among American Jews—having Chinese food with family and friends. I caught the last 20 minutes of the original (and thankfully uncolorized) 1947 version of Miracle on 34th Street, in which a […]
This past week I have encountered more proof that anti-unionism is now part of the arsenal of ideological assumptions that the mass media makes on our behalf. I saw two examples of an anti-union subtext in articles by two writers whose work I generally admire: James Surowieki, who writes The New Yorker’s “Financial Page, and […]
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The Obama Administration is once again displaying its conservative feathers as proudly as any peacock might. The same group of pseudo-progressives who overruled distribution of Plan B birth control without an I.D. and executed an about-face to gut proposed higher pollution emission standards now plans to make another assault on freedom of speech. Obama’s Federal […]
House Republicans persist in stonewalling an agreement to extend and expand the temporary cut in Social Security and Medicare taxes (AKA payroll taxes). After holding the U.S. economy hostage time and again to maintain temporary tax cuts for the wealthy and paying for them by gutting programs for everyone else, the Republicans are now opposing […]
Goya’s masterful etching, “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters,” has haunted western culture since it first appeared as part of Los Caprichos in 1797. Goya brings to life the idea that reason can produce monsters with his usual light but precise touch that seems always able to depict both figures and their motives. At the […]
A number of times over the past few years I have made derogatory references to video or electronic games, always as substantiation of my theory that our mass culture encourages adults to hold onto childish entertainments and habits. But I was only partially right about computer games. As it turns out, only certain types of […]
The best advertising attempts to evoke an emotion in the viewer or listener and then link that emotion to the product or service for sale. Budweiser has a series of ads meant to make you feel patriotic that it runs on July 4. McDonald’s ads for its coffee drinks are meant to make the viewer […]
Tim Tebow has every right to do his little public prayer at football games. His drop to one knee is protected speech under the Constitution of the United States. And I have every right to tell the world how much I despise everything that tebowing represents to me and many others. Let’s start with the […]
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I imagine that virtually no OpEdge reader could beat Kobe Bryant at one-on-one basketball. And none of you could outrun Usain Bolt, current world record holder in the 100 meter dash. You couldn’t sneak a fast ball by Alex Rodriguez. Women’s golf champ Yanni Tseng would give you 5 strokes and still beat you. Hikaru […]
I’m betting that Mitt Romney gave his campaign for the Republican nomination a deadly wound in last night’s umpteenth debate between the Republican candidates to face President Obama in November 2012. It doesn’t matter if Mitt or Texas Rick was right in their latest little spat over facts. What matters is that by so smugly […]