“Gentlemen, we have run out of money. It’s time to start thinking.” – Ernest Rutherford, British explorer – quoted sometime after 1910 Political analysts unaffiliated with The Onion suggested Monday that Silvio Berlusconi and upstart challenger Beppe Grillo may have enough votes between them to form a new, coalition government in Italy. If this [...]
Like 10% of the US population, I am what is commonly known as a “lapsed” Catholic, making me part of what would be the third largest denomination in America. Although I’m probably not all that representative of my brethren, given that from about age 8 on I didn’t believe a word of what I heard [...]
UPDATED BELOW: Several years ago, when altar boy gone bad Rick Santorum was still busily embarrassing Pennsylvanians in the US Senate, I found myself watching CNN with my dear friend Tina and her mother, and one of them said, “What’s that on his forehead?” I sheepishly glanced at the TV, being the only Catholic in [...]
Each day, I thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for the UK’s Guardian. Where else can an American go to find out what the rest of the world thinks of us? Certainly not Kaplan’s loss leader, the WaPoo, and undoubtedly not Judy Miller’s old place, the New York Times. That unusually worthwhile newspaper reported today that, [...]
Poor ol’ Willard can’t catch a break these days and, oddly enough for a guy who seems utterly convinced his shit doesn’t stink, poop always seems to be involved. For a long time, the NYT’s Gail Collins has obsessed about his dog squirting butt gravy off the roof of the car (she brought it up [...]
I don’t know what it is that makes Rick Santorum so uniquely repulsive, but the following quote from today’s Republican debate might be part of it: When asked what he would do if one of his sons revealed he were gay, Santorum replied, “I would love him as much as I did the second before [...]
They’re everywhere – these little men. No tendentious description of the phenomenon is required, nor is a detailed and boring historical context necessary, since they (like the poor) “have always been with us.” But the sudden “surge” of poseurs, fakers, demagogues, deadbeats, and crooks stands out right now, as our vaunted world economy teeter-totters, [...]
As I’ve written so tirelessly, and perhaps even tiresomely, in the Era of Hope and Change, Obama has turned out to be our first post-partisan President, after all. Meaning, he has well and truly gotten rid of any party principles that used to make people OF HIS OWN PARTY, I might add, actually vote, rather [...]
CHNN’s managing editor has been clamoring, seemingly for weeks on end, for something – anything!!! – on Silvio Berlusconi, the 21st century’s first world-class, hair-plugged, near octogenarian diva, major domo buffo – and now! - criminal defendant, with a prostitution charge stuffed inside a grab bag of official abuse allegations in his capacity as Italian [...]
It’s funny how some people don’t really become legendary until they’re dead, and there’s a reason for it; their carefully crafted images never squared with the reality, and each day they continued in public life they could only grow smaller in the eyes of their fans. Leaving the planet, then, turned out to be quite [...]