Our country is currently being held hostage by the partisan bickering that is going on in our nation’s capital. This is just another dog and pony show, to be sure, but nevertheless the stakes have never been higher. We are in an unprecedented crisis, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the Great Depression. And still, while Rome burns, our elected officials fiddle, refusing to accept the reality of our situation and do what is necessary to ensure our country’s survival.

We must raise our debt limit by the completely hard and fast August 2nd deadline. If we do not, the United States will default on all of its obligations, and our nation — and, indeed, the entire world — shall be thrown into chaos. [Read more →]

Tags: politics & government, trusted media & news by Ricky Sprague
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Dear Ronald McDonald,

First, I want to say thank you. Sincerely and honestly, thank you for your recent announcement that you will be putting apple slices in your Happy Meals. Now, no longer will the toy be the healthiest thing children can remove from that colorful box and put in their mouths. Apple slices are naturally sweet and delicious, and I think you’ll find that the children who eat your food-like products will come to love these apple slices even more than the other things you put in those “meals.” [Read more →]

Tags: family & parenting, politics & government by Ricky Sprague
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Dominance got my attention in the very first pages and hung on to it right to the end. It’s a book about a book with an author who may not even exist. It’s about the night class, taken a decade ago, and how it changed the lives of the students who took it. It’s about The Procedure, and the danger it represents. And it’s about a present-day murder and how it may change everything they thought they learned in the night class. [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, Lisa Reads by Lisa Hura
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Robert Irwin is an English writer who has written six amazing novels and numerous studies of different aspects of Islamic culture. He is also the Middle Eastern editor of the Times Literary Supplement and has been instrumental in shaping the list of the hyper literary and thoroughly esoteric publisher Dedalus. While still a student at Oxford in the 1960s he travelled to Algeria with the intention of becoming a Sufi saint, an experience he describes in his latest extraordinary book, Memoirs of a Dervish. Recently I interviewed this remarkable man, resulting in the email conversation which I reproduce for your reading pleasure below.  [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, religion & philosophy by Daniel Kalder
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You know what I am sick of? George Lucas bashing. That’s what I am sick of. That said, I don’t think George Lucas is the Jesus of movie makers. I like Star Wars well enough. I really like Indiana Jones. The guy is great, but I’m not going to declare him the Shakespeare of Hollywood. He makes good, entertaining films with enough depth that they hold up for numerous viewings. What more can you ask?

But can we admit something, please? The original Star Wars trilogy is not the apex of film-making. Are those films the equals of Citizen Kane or Lawrence of Arabia or, heck — Schindler’s List? No. Of course they are not. [Read more →]

Tags: artistic unknowns by Chris Matarazzo, movies by Chris Matarazzo
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It seems to me, doesn’t it to you, that a lot of the public squabbles we incessantly hear of do not arise from mere differences of opinion but from a seemingly primal urge we humans have to tell other people what to do. It’s not enough to be secure in our own certainty. It’s not enough for us to tell other people how right we are and how wrong they are. It’s not even enough for us to simply tell others what to do. We have to tell them what to do and, if they don’t comply, try to force them to do what we say through state action or the courts. It’s a sickness, a human design flaw, I think. I’m not immune. Frankly, I’m writing this to tell people to stop telling other people what to do, which kind of defeats my purpose. But wouldn’t the world be a more peaceful place if we adopted a more ‘live and let live’ attitude; if we curtailed our pursuit of power over others through government fiat; if we were just more accepting of differences in lifestyles, values, and beliefs?  [Read more →]

Tags: movies, politics & government, religion & philosophy by Jay Baldwin
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Everyday I’m shufflin’, and chasin’ around a blond blur known as my son Jack. And everyday I’m stressin’ about my bank account and bills, and prayin’ my car makes it to whatever destination I need to get to. Every night I’m averagin’ about 4 hours of choppy sleep courtesy of Jack. And every weekend down the shore I’m listenin’ to commercial radio loaded with pop music. Guess what? I’m startin’ to dig it. At first, I chalked it up to my unhealthy lack of sleep and maddening descent into domestication. But I am realizin’ that there are other factors involved. [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, Marty digs by Marty O'Connor
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Each week, I sit down to watch the NASCAR Sprint Cup race. Some of the time, I turn on the broadcast too early and subject myself to the variety of useless things that the track promoters choose to bring to us, from hideous renditions of the Star Spangled Banner to some wildly unnecessary and expensive flyovers by the military. I am not anti-military by any means, but I am pretty sure there is a better use of the money it costs to run those planes than to fly over some mid-season race that means little in the long run. Save it for the big races, guys. Anyway, part of the pre-race routine always includes some sort of religious (read: Christian) prayer. I find it totally bizarre that not only is this still done, but it is almost always broadcast by the television network as well. This is a practice that should be changed. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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10. Instead of giving you a chair, he makes you squat

9. He insists that you think of him as “Your boss…with benefits”

8. Your healthcare plan is a box of bandaids

7. “Casual Friday” means he comes to work in his pajamas

6. You wish he were only “all hands”

5. Your “probationary period” is now in its sixteenth year

4. You have to submit your request to use the bathroom two days in advance

3. The closest thing you’ve had to a promotion is when they doubled your lunch break to ten minutes

2. He greets you every morning with the phrase, “Do you still work here?!”

1. He insists on paying you in Cheetos
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

Tags: all work, Bob Sullivan's top ten everything by Bob Sullivan
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The debt ceiling, the debt ceiling, everybody says the debt ceiling. Apparently Obama has to raise it if Uncle Sam is to pay his bills. The big issue is the question of how to get more money so America doesn’t have to keep borrowing cash from foreigners: cut spending and cut taxes? Or keep spending and raise taxes? The answer depends on which baseball team you support. I mean, political party.

Well anyway for a long time I dismissed all this debt ceiling talk as the usual shenanigans from the plutocrats in Congress. But then I read that if an agreement could not be reached between the Blue Team and the Red Team then America would default on its loans. Pensions would go unpaid! Babies would be forced to shovel coal! And so on! Apparently Moody’s – an organization possibly related to the burger joint of the same name at the end of my street – is threatening to downgrade America’s “Triple A rating” (which I believe describes the quality of its hotels). [Read more →]

Tags: money, trusted media & news by Daniel Kalder
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