United States | lullaby pit

Category Archives: United States

Journalism Accomplished: why aren’t news organizations telling the whole truth in Wisconsin and why aren’t the state’s conservatives demanding secession?

Posted on 2011.02.20 by winterSmith 11 comments

I 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

S&R’s Harvey Pekar tribute propped at Westword

Posted on 2010.12.18 by winterSmith One comment

When we invited Denver cartooning legend Kenny Be of Westword to contribute to our Harvey Pekar series, we didn’t really anticipate return coverage in the Mile High City’s long-running alt-weekly. We just wanted to include as many talented people as we could, and Be is as essentially Denver as the Capitol Hill People’s Fair, South Broadway’s antique row, pool upstairs

Lawyers, guns and money and Shari’a Law and air conditioning the desert: how the hell did the US lose World Cup 2022 to Qatar?!

Posted on 2010.12.02 by winterSmith 7 comments

Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the governing body of world soccer, today awarded the 2022 World Cup to Qatar. The move is regarded by most as an upset – the odds-on favorite to land the event was the United States, which hosted the most successful Copa in history in 1994. Also in the running were Australia and a combined

What would a progressive society look like? The Tricentennial Manifesto

Posted on 2010.11.19 by winterSmith 24 comments

One of my lists is currently engaged in a fairly dynamic discussion about “what is a progressive?” In thinking about the issue, I realized that it might help to ask the question a slightly different way: what would a progressive society look like? Maybe I can better understand what it means to be progressive in 2010 if I reverse-engineer the

It’s time for progressives to forget about winning the battle and start concentrating on winning the war

Posted on 2010.11.15 by winterSmith 18 comments

It was Sun Tzu, I believe, who first suggested that in order to win the war, you sometimes have to lose the battle. This precept has been on my mind quite a bit since the results of the recent election began rolling in. For instance… Earlier today one of my political lists was discussing the aftermath of the elections and

Worst. Year. Ever.

Posted on 2010.09.28 by winterSmith 11 comments

What the hell is up with 2010? And will it ever end? This has been the worst year of my life. I guess those who were there to see the trainwreck that was 1988 might argue that it was marginally worse, but the point is that this year has sucked from the outset. It began with the collapse of my

Survivor: who is the greatest player of all time?

Posted on 2010.05.18 by winterSmith 13 comments

Part two in a series. Yesterday I explained why I think Survivor is the ultimate game. Today I want to talk about the players – and to solicit your opinion on the subject. On the reunion show the other night the question was quickly raised: does this victory make Sandra Diaz-Twine the greatest player ever? Sandra says yes. Russell Hantz

Survivor: the greatest game ever played

Posted on 2010.05.17 by winterSmith 17 comments

Part one of a series. The 20th season of Survivor, Heroes vs. Villains (or, if you prefer, Revenge vs. Redemption) is now in the books, and Sandra Diaz-Twine is the game’s first two-time champion. Many fans regarded HvV as one of the best seasons ever, if not the very best. I don’t believe I’ve ever written about Survivor before, but

Secession: a rough beast whose hour has come round at last?

Posted on 2010.03.29 by winterSmith 27 comments

I’d like to begin by showing you a picture and asking you what you see. Good. With that in mind, have a look at this one and tell me what you see.

When Jesus Attacks! Why don’t we care that the Catholic Church is officially whipping Congress?

Posted on 2010.03.11 by winterSmith 25 comments

Part 2 of 2. (Read part 1…) It’s Time to Separate Church and State, Once and for All If you recall, anti-Catholic prejudice was once a problem for Catholic politicians in the US. John F. Kennedy went so far as to address the issue head-on in his 1960 campaign – probably because he didn’t feel he had much choice. Here’s

Are liberals smarter than conservatives? Our nitwit media strike again…

Posted on 2010.02.28 by winterSmith 16 comments

CNN reported last week on a new study showing that liberalism, atheism and sexual exclusivity in males are linked to higher IQ scores. The findings are intriguing, for all the obvious reasons. Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa at the the London School of Economics and Political Science correlated data on these behaviors with IQ from a large national U.S. sample and

9/11 happened on Obama’s watch! GOP noise machine already hard at work on the history books of the future

Posted on 2010.01.11 by winterSmith 13 comments

Something wicked this way comes. Item: Former White House Press Secretary Dana Perino says “we did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term.” Item: GOP apologist Mary Matalin says President Bush “inherited the most tragic attack on our own soil in our nation’s history.” Item: Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani says “We had

Predicting the 21st Century: Nostraslammy’s ten-year review

Posted on 2010.01.05 by winterSmith 6 comments

Ten years ago, at the turn of the millennium, Nostraslammy took a stab at predicting the 21st Century, with a promise to check back every ten years to see how the prognostications were turning out. Odds are good I won’t be able to do a review every ten years until 2100, but I figure I’m probably good through 2030, at

Democracy & Elitism 4: equality, opportunity and leveling up the playing field

Posted on 2010.01.04 by winterSmith 79 comments

Pulitzer- and Emmy-winner William Henry‘s famous polemic, In Defense of Elitism (1994), argues that societies can be ranked along a spectrum with “egalitarianism” on one end and “elitism” on the other. He concludes that America, to its detriment, has slid too far in the direction of egalitarianism, and in the process that it has abandoned the elitist impulse that made