I’ve probably watched more NBA games this season than ever before, and those of you who have indulged my rantings in the past know I have … issues … with The League. Frankly, I wish they’d bring back Tim Donaghy so we can all stop pretending. [Aherm] Anyway, I am now more convinced than ever that I see a predictable,
Read moreWell, the 68 participants in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament have been announced, and boy are people pissed. The selection committee is defending its choices, the most controversial of which seem to be the inclusion of Alabama-Birmingham and Virginia Commonwealth at the expense of teams like Colorado, Alabama, Virginia Tech. Given the way the Hokies lollygagged down the stretch I’m
Read moreA few weeks ago I asked a question: is the Huffington Post a force for good or a liberal sweatshop? In the wake of HuffPo‘s megamillion-dollar sale to AOL, it struck me as appropriate to question the ethics behind an allegedly progressive business operating in a fashion that was indistinguishable from the greedmongering corporate entities it professed to oppose. I
Read moreScholars & Rogues recently launched the S&R LitJournal in order to promote creative writing in the form of new poetry, fiction and nonfiction. We’ve received and published several works from talented authors and look forward to presenting our readers with more quality original literature in the future. Since some members of our staff are creative writers, we’re familiar with the
Read more2011 is already shaping up to be a great year for new music. Esben & the Witch’s greatly anticipated debut really delivers, Adele’s sophomore effort is a strong step forward, and Wire is back, after all these years, with an outstanding effort that manages a sound that’s both contemporary and true to their New Wave heritage. A fantastic new REM
Read moreI’m watching the Bulls/Magic game and it got me thinking (because there are two former Blue Devils on the Chicago roster and one more playing for Orlando) about Mike Krzschefvzksky-era Duke players and the NBA. Duke has won a bunch during his tenure and they’ve put a number of players in the pros, but none have really ripped the lid
Read moreWe all have our favorite stops around the ‘sphere. One of the oldest and best progressive voices out there is Jeff Tiedrich’s Smirking Chimp, and while we don’t normally do this sort of thing, I’m asking everybody to pop over there today and, if you can, contribute to their fund drive. They’re talking a heavy beating financially, as are a
Read moreI suppose, as a general rule, the human animal is built to prefer knowing to not knowing, but I have been struck over the course of the past decade or so at how much worse our society has gotten at tolerating uncertainty. It’s as if having to say “I don’t know” triggers some kind of DNA-level existential crisis that the
Read moreFor some time – a few years, to be honest – I’ve been trying to imagine how some artists get better with age (or at least retain the level of energy and creativity they exhibited when they were younger), while others go completely to hell. Peter Gabriel, Graham Parker, Van Morrison, Don Dixon, John Hiatt (and even Bowie, to a
Read moreSome time back I mentioned that a group of us dirty hippie libruls have started a sports talk blog (because we love sports as much as we hate your freedom). Now, the same cast of ne’er-do-wells has launched an actual political site called, simply enough, Dirty Hippies (democracy, unwashed). Several of us here at S&R are members, and the site
Read moreAfter months and months of wrangling, speculation, posing, posturing, misdirection and strategery, wheeling and dealing, and fear and loathing, the Carmelo Anthony circus has finally departed the 5280 bound for the Big Apple. Praise Jebus, and may we never have to hear the term “MeloDrama” again. So, who got the better of the deal? We’ll know for sure in two
Read moreI tend to avoid programs produced by major network news divisions like I would the galloping herpes, but I do occasionally tune into CBS Sunday Morning. In its better moments, Charles Osgood helms a tranquil, reflective magazine foregrounding the people, places and things that define what’s best about American culture. At its worst, of course, it’s just another fair and
Read moreI promised myself that I’d hold fire for a few days when the AOL/Huffington Post deal was announced. My initial reaction was that the sale shone a bright light on some dysfunctional dynamics within the “progressive” media sphere (and this was even before I read Dr. Denny’s outstanding take the other day on how we’re all just serfs in the
Read moreI watched one season of American Idol a few years back out of a combination of boredom and morbid curiosity. It was everything I had imagined and less, a welcome-to-the-Fall-of-Rome extravaganza where everything wrong with popular music, if not American popular culture in general, was frog-marched past the cameras in a weekly parade of cynicism and banality that would have
Read moreOriginally published June 20, 2004. Updated February 14, 2011. For some time – a few years, to be honest – I’ve been trying to imagine how some artists get better with age (or at least retain the level of energy and creativity they exhibited when they were younger), while others go completely to hell. Peter Gabriel, Graham Parker, Van Morrison,
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