So Star Trek ’09 is out, it’s a big hit, and response to it is way over the top. This is highly enjoyable if you like to see people grappling with a popular culture artifact as if their lives depended on it, leaving rational resistance behind. What else are popular culture artifacts for?

(more…)

Mass psychosis?

So by now you’ve probably heard something about this election that happened on Tuesday. There seemed to be a whole hoo-ha about it, people hugging and high-fiving in the streets, international rejoicing, everybody laughing and crying and gibbering. In an elated frenzy, a friend of mine e-mailed me marveling how great it is not to be living in Dumbfuckistan anymore.

That’s how I knew the whole thing must be phony, just the kind of tall tale a delusional nation might tell itself as it finally slipped over the edge into mass psychosis. So the story is we all got together, we the people, and elected the very best person running for president, did we? The one who didn’t look like an Orc? The apparently intelligent, seemingly decent one who talked in mellifluous complete sentences and appeared calm and reasonable? AND he’s black?

(more…)

Today’s Defendant: White America

Statement of the Grand Inquisitor: Today we write in praise of White America. It’s long overdue, says Frank Rich, the New York Times columnist. He wrote a recent article called “In Defense of White America” in which he argues that we’ve all misjudged the Caucasian Category in this country and owe it a big apology. The media, in particular, has tagged White America as racist and therefore unlikely to vote for a black man. But now that Barack Obama is up in the polls, we see how wrong we’ve been. Look how free of prejudice White America is! A teeming mass of tolerance, that’s White America for you, says Frank Rich.
(more…)

Today’s Defendant: Christopher Buckley

Statement of the Grand Inquisitor: Like his father before him, Buckley has led a life of vilest error from beginning to end: speechwriter for G.H.W. Bush, author of reams of smug crap, wearer of that stupid hat pictured above. Today we will contemplate his most recent sin, which might seem small in and of itself, but which in our view constitutes The Last Straw. He made an announcement in The Daily Beast, Tina Brown’s latest foul publication, entitled “Sorry Dad, I’m Voting for Obama”. It starts like this: “Let me be the latest conservative/libertarian/whatever to leap onto the Barack Obama bandwagon. It’s a good thing my dear old mum and pup are no longer alive. They’d have cut off my allowance.”

(more…)