Monthly Archives: July 2016

This week’s Democratic National Convention featured many Republicans testifying on behalf of Hillary Clinton. But they could hardly be expected to spell out the real reasons GOP loyalists should vote for Clinton. However, I thought that I would see it in National Review or The Federalist or my other favorite conservative sites. Maybe I missed it. But since I haven’t seen it, let me leave it here. For this argument, you need 2020 vision, instead of the usual get-it-now-forget-the-future myopia that […]

It’s hot in California. Which means the grass is always greener…in some land that exists partly in our imagination. Dar is having a summer. For him that means taking off his clothes whenever possible and “tee-tee-teeing” around our backyard and our lanai (that’s “deck” if you don’t speak Hawaiian), where lucky passersby can frequently see all of him – and I mean all of him. Wifey’s concern is that he spends a lot of time “tee-tee-teeing” when I could be […]

The Oscars don’t matter. The Emmys don’t matter. San Diego Comic-Con is all that matters. As someone who spends at least three months of every year thinking and writing about the award-worthy films that become grist for the Oscar race, it pained me to write the previous sentence. But it’s true. Today I want to talk about why that truth is great, why it’s bad, and why that’s different from how things were just fifteen years ago. First, the great […]

In three of four nights, the Republican National Convention has gone almost exactly the way the Democrats would have scripted it. In the past, people have suggested that Donald Trump is actually a Manchurian Candidate working to get Hillary Clinton elected. If that’s true, there could be no greater evidence than the first three-fourths of #RNCinCLE. Many, including the estimable David Gergen this week on CNN, called Trump’s ascension to the official nomination a “hostile takeover” of the party. Certainly, the […]

Dar lost his first tooth ever! One of his bottom front teeth loosened before we left for Alaska. It finally, finally came out as our plane landed in San Francisco. Not sure if that counts as losing it “on the trip” or not. Dar did not get a visit from the tooth fairy because he wouldn’t understand, he’s never followed a direction like “look under your pillow,” and in fact he might swallow the coin. Also, I can’t pair this story […]

Rotten Tomatoes (rottentomatoes.com) should make a very simple, very make-able change: add a third percentage to its two banner percentages. Alongside the big old TOMATOMETER and AUDIENCE SCORE (for any given film), Rotten Tomatoes should add a HISTORICAL TOMATOMETER (or, more playfully, FRIED GREEN TOMATOMETER) to indicate what the RT score of a film would have been when the film actually came out. You might think that this suggestion would be obvious, but go ahead and google the key terms, and […]

Next week, Republicans gather in Cleveland to officially anoint Donald J. Trump their standard-bearer and presidential nominee. A year ago, nobody saw this coming. Well, nobody, that is, except for Norm Ornstein, who wrote one prescient column a year ago. And of course me, who wrote dozens over the last three years. Now, I must rush to clarify. I did not predict a major-party nomination for Trump per se (nor did Ornstein, despite vox painting it that way). What I have been […]

After the horrible events in Louisiana, Minnesota, and Dallas, I decided to take a week off to listen. See you next week.

At some point, wifey and I decided that for the first time in our lives, we wanted to see Alaska. We further decided that somehow, Dar would enjoy the experience and not drive us crazy, despite his taking two flights each way (he’d never done this), trying to sleep in a land where the sun never really sets (he’d certainly never done this), and living in a claustrophobic RV for eleven days (he’d absolutely no way ever done this). So, […]

Some ideas are best left in the past. Others, I come back to them and think: you know what, this holds up. In the latter group I place Land of Liberty, the amusement park. I’m not Elon Musk, and so I don’t have the billion dollars of startup that this would take. I also don’t know any Elon Musks. But I’m not even sure this is really an action item; it might make more sense as a background in a […]