Move that schoolbus!

Last updated on: February 14, 2008 at 9:07 pm By Fred Clark

I need to revisit “Shlock and Awwww: Commercializing Altruism” — Jon Mooallem’s conflicted appreciation of ABC television’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Mooallem’s summary of the show’s process is dead on: “In charity,” Francis Bacon wrote, “there is no excess.” But then Bacon never saw Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, which since 2003 has been meting out garish and super-sized acts of charity — each more skillfully choreographed and excessive than the last — every Sunday night on ABC. Each week, the... Read more

The weight of words

Last updated on: February 13, 2008 at 8:38 pm By Fred Clark

Looking ahead to the possibility of a general election campaign against Barack Obama, John McCain tried out some attack lines last night. They need work. Referring to Obama’s mantra of “hope,” McCain said this: “Hope, my friends, is a powerful thing. I can attest to that better than many, for I have seen men’s hopes tested in hard and cruel ways that few will ever experience.” So far, so good. The reference there is to the long years McCain spent... Read more

Inspiring

Last updated on: February 11, 2008 at 10:08 pm By Fred Clark

Because more of the same, only harder, is kind of like change too. (Viia Mojoblog. If you haven’t seen the original, see here. And remember, “Your favorite candidate sucks” (via). Read more

L.B.: Losing Chloe

Last updated on: June 26, 2012 at 2:30 pm By Fred Clark

Left Behind, pp. 400-409 Buck Williams isn’t intended to be perceived here as the ever-present, unshakeable, stalker-pursuer of Chloe Steele. That role is reserved for God. We’re supposed to see Chloe here as chased by the very “Hound of Heaven.” God has tracked her down, worn her down and now, at last, we come to Chloe’s big conversion scene. Then again, “conversion” may be too grand a word for what happens to the converts in Left Behind. None of them... Read more

L.B.: Educational filmstrip

Last updated on: June 26, 2012 at 2:30 pm By Fred Clark

Left Behind, pp. 400-409 An alternative interpretation of these pages … How to Handle a Stalker You meet someone at a dinner party in a city far from home. He seems pleasant, normal enough. You depart on friendly terms, telling him to give you a call if he’s ever in your part of the country. The next morning you learn that he has booked a flight to your city. More than that, he has booked a seat on the very... Read more

Here’s my Take

Last updated on: June 26, 2012 at 2:30 pm By Fred Clark

I’ve been wishing that I wasn’t such a parasite … “Take a Look Around,” Phil Keaggy “Take It With Me,” Tom Waits “Take Me (Back) to You,” Cracker “Take Me Back,” Van Morrison “Take Me Back to Love Canal,” Chagall Guevara “Take Me Down to the Infirmary,” Cracker “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” The Hold Steady “Take Me to Aruanda,” Astrud Gilberto “Take Me to Mars,” Milla “Take Me to the River,” Annie Lennox “Take Me to the River,”... Read more

Don’t answer that

Last updated on: June 26, 2012 at 2:32 pm By Fred Clark

Political interviewers of the Russert school often ask questions without listening to or caring about the answers given. The substance of either the question or the answer isn’t the point. The ritual, whether called an “interview” or a “debate” (their term for simultaneous interviews during which the interviewees remain standing) is really an attempt to measure politicians’ ability to “stay on message.” What that message is is beside the point. The substance of the message, or its lack of substance,... Read more

Yesterday

Last updated on: February 6, 2008 at 10:31 pm By Fred Clark

Time’s Karen Tumulty provides the total vote counts, nationwide, for Super Tuesday. (I’m not sure how these account for caucuses.) Tumulty is focused on the remarkably close race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, but that’s not what I found most striking. Here are those same numbers tossed into Word’s graph-maker: So Clinton and Obama both received more than twice as many votes as John McCain did yesterday. The overnight spin-chat on MSNBC somehow neglected to mention that. They were... Read more

Leftovers again

Last updated on: February 5, 2008 at 7:22 pm By Fred Clark

Apologies for not tying all this together. The paper I work for is in Delaware and I’ve spent the past week in Super-Tuesday-prep mode. So even though I live in Pennsylvania, and we’re not part of today’s festivities, I’ve had the nagging feeling all day that I should be voting. “Soylent Green is poor people!” TBogg 10, Megan McArdle 0. McArdle argues that “the poor don’t need more food,” because, like, she once saw a poor person who was fat... Read more

Let the sun shine

Last updated on: June 26, 2012 at 2:29 pm By Fred Clark

Thank you, Eric N., for introducing me to Jon Talton’s Rogue Columnist. His rant on “What’s really wrong with newspapers” treats the newspaper biz the way a real reporter would if he didn’t already work for the newspaper biz. He follows the money. I recommend the entire piece including — maybe even especially — those bits that bite the hand that feeds me personally. Talton’s critique of the way shareholder’s demands for ever-increasing profits have triumphed over the needs of... Read more