This reason.tv video, about the charming old guy who owns Anchor Brewing Company and the recent increase in craft breweries in the US, kind of indirectly got me thinking about an issue upon which I break off from many members of libertarian-of-center ideological communities.

The charming old guy in question, Fritz Maytag, proclaims at one point that he is an exceptionalist: he views the American story as particularly amazing, inspiring, and beautiful. He’s a hardcore patriot. This attitude is quite widespread in this country (especially in rural areas, but just about everywhere, really), and perhaps even abroad as well, but I’m going to argue that it’s not an attitude that a libertarian ought to have. [Read more →]

Tags: politics & government, religion & philosophy by Calvin Pollak
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Lady GaGa is famous in large part because she wears provocative clothing in public. It is part of her persona, and her occupation is her persona. She is not just a singer and songwriter. She is a performer, who is “on” all the time, whose very life is a sort of “performance art.”

For instance, here she is at Heathrow airport:

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Tags: art & entertainment, ends & odd by Ricky Sprague
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One of the great things about comics are alternate-reality scenarios. The No Man’s Land series, which spans four reasonably thick volumes, is an excellent specimen, offering most (if not all) of the significant Batman villains, while providing a fresh look at relatively stale heroes including Batman, Commissioner Gordon, Oracle, and Huntress.

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Tags: books & writing, just fantastic by Steve Mazzeo
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As I’m sure many of you have heard, the courts have ruled that the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is unconstitutional.  In a move which can be both a relief (Someone finally stood up to activist judges!) and a nightmare (Is the military really above the law?), the Pentagon told the country that they can just bugger off.

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Tags: on the law, politics & government by Mike McGowan
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This week, I am getting super nostalgic with fall in the air. And I have a quick note about the Video Music Awards, and some disgust over the HBO show Entourage. [Read more →]

Tags: music, television by Marty O'Connor
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I planned to lead with a Good Sports story this week, talking about the fact that football is back. I love football, and the start of football season is very exciting for me. I had plans to wax poetic on the beauty of the game, from the joy of watching a well-executed offense to the exhilaration of the jarring hits and intensity of a strong defense. I planned this even though both my college team (Penn State) and my pro team (the Eagles) were not expected to win this weekend. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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10. You’ve only ever heard of it in the PennySaver

9. The college application was an insert in a McDonald’s menu

8. It’s run by defrocked nuns

7. The only book in the library has already been colored in

6. Last year’s commencement speaker was Justin Bieber

5. They spell it “U. N. I. V. E. R. C. I. T. Y.”

4. They boast “fewer felons on the faculty than last year”

3. The photo on the cover of the college catalogue: Snooki

2. The “Dean’s office” is a ’57 Buick

1. Most famous alumnus: Rod Blagojevich
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

Tags: Bob Sullivan's top ten everything, education by Bob Sullivan
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I had just 48 hours in Chicago and I wanted to make the most of it.

I picked up my rental car and went straight from O’Hare International (a smooth 90 minute flight from Newark) to Rick Bayless‘ upscale Mexican restaurant, Topolobampo (which is located just a flight of stairs away from Bayless’ flagship restaurant, Frontera Grill). [Read more →]

Tags: recipes & food, travel & foreign lands by Jessica Alfreds
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Today we look back nine years at the day when four commercial jets were used as weapons against the United States.

For me, the most difficult (but ultimately, the most rewarding) conclusion to make has been that the policy choices of the United States, NATO, and Israel (in short, the Free World) toward the Arab/Muslim world, policy choices which have amounted to, broadly, wholesale manipulation (supporting Al-Qaeda against Russia, supporting the Shah against the Iranians, consistently supporting the Saudis, and on and on and on) and occupation (the West Bank, Gaza, the first Gulf War, and on and on and on) for the purposes of geopolitical advantage, contributed enormously, from a causal standpoint, to the events of 9/11. [Read more →]

Tags: terror & war by Calvin Pollak
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Did you know that two Thai nationals were among those killed during the terrorist attacks of 9/11? Neither did I.
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Tags: race & culture, terror & war by Jeff McDonald
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Like many adults, I left Toy Story 3 a little sniffly. As I drove home and tried to uncover the source of my maudlin mood — my three kids were not helping encourage this analytical state — I realized how much I was struck by the play scenes that open and close the movie. In both scenes (no spoiler alert needed here, by the way) a child is immersed in play with a variety of different toys, assigning roles based on their own plot. Mr. Potato Head is a villain. Cowgirl and spaceman dolls work together. Monkeys from a Barrel of Monkeys have their own part. A cardboard box is a major prop. Even a piggy bank is a character. [Read more →]

Tags: technology, virtual children by Scott Warnock by Scott Warnock
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1) Go to bed whenever you feel sleepy. I know. It’s only 3:00 PM. But your eyes hurt! Just go for it. I promise you won’t wake up until a decent hour in the morning. A nice early night. How refreshing!

2) When you wake up at 2:00 AM and are unable to go back to sleep, the solution is simple: turn on all the lights in your house! Your body will think it’s daytime, and you can just have a really long day. It’s like the summer solstice! Seize it! [Read more →]

Tags: advice, mostly kidding by Matt Scottoline, travel & foreign lands by Matt Scottoline
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A recent yahoo article takes the lede, buries it under about 50 pounds of dirt, then poops all over it by reporting that president Barack Obama has resorted to quoting Jimi Hendrix lyrics in his attempts to counter his “powerful” critics.

“Some powerful interests who had been dominating the agenda in Washington for a very long time — and they’re not always happy with me — they talk about me like a dog. That’s not in my prepared remarks, but it’s true,” Obama said during a speech at Wisconsin’s Laborfest on Monday.

Though Obama didn’t acknowledge it, the line was a verbatim quote from “Stone Free,” the first song Hendrix wrote after moving to England in 1966. “They talk about me like a dog,” the song says. “Talkin about the clothes I wear. But they don’t realize they’re the ones who’s square.”

It’s unclear if Obama consciously or unconsciously cited the lyric.

Once again, the main stream media — or, as I prefer to call it, the lame stream media, because they’re lame, [Read more →]

Tags: politics & government, trusted media & news by Ricky Sprague
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We continue in our explorations with Dr. Guenther Spiegelvogel of the Performance Therapy Institute in Vienna. First, I read and he interprets one of my dreams:

Then, Spiegelvogel and I discuss: [Read more →]

Tags: Fred's dreams by Fred Siegel
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Today is my daughter’s first day of Pre-K. I can’t even really call it her first day because she goes for an hour and I have to stay with her. When the hell did this become my first day of school? This is horse shit. My kid’s been going to some sort of all day progam/nursery school since she was two. She doesn’t need me hanging around watching her introduce herself to the all the nanny-bred kids who have never spent a day away from home. It’s not my fault that she’s going to walk right in there stoked and good to go. She’s already annoyed that I’m not just dropping her off and picking her up in the afternoon. Even she thinks this is stupid [Read more →]

Tags: family & parenting, going parental by Jaclyn Roth
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The first half of this film seemed funny and promising.  When Kevin Kline appeared, the film got funnier. But at the halfway point of this 105 minute film, the plot began to unravel and by the end of The Extra Man, I no longer cared about these characters. [Read more →]

Tags: Gail sees a movie, movies by Gail D. Rosen
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After an abnormally cheerful take-off announcement and a smooth landing on an early morning flight from Knoxville to Chicago, I couldn’t help but wonder: why do we tip certain professions and not others? Why hairdressers and not auto mechanics? Why appliance delivery and not UPS? Why tour guides, bellhops, valet parking, bathroom attendants, and not grocery baggers, librarians, bank tellers, or movie store clerks? [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes, money by Tyler Samien
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We don’t normally acknowledge famous birthdays here at When Falls, but we should. And today we do. September 7th is the late Eazy E’s birthday. Eazy E (given name Eric Wright) was the founder of the seminal rap group NWA, and subsequently, the founder of gangster rap music.

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Tags: art & entertainment, music by Robert O'Hara
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Do you remember the indie horror film “The Blair Witch Project”? Remember how frustrating it was to watch the three victims make stupid mistake after stupid mistake? And remember the end of the film when they found that abandoned house in the woods and, exercising no common sense whatsoever, actually went inside? Remember how by that point you were so annoyed with the whole thing that instead of shouting “Girl, don’t go in there!” you shook your head and said “They deserve whatever they’re going to get.”? If you do remember, well, then you know exactly how I feel about Kat Von D dating Jesse James. [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, Meg gives advice to famous people by Meg Boyle
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I’ve been reading Frederick Forsyth since his classic thriller The Day of the Jackal came out in 1971.  

I like that Forsyth uses his skills as a journalist to infuse his thrillers with true facts and details about crime, espionage, terrorism and war. Forsyth also offers a good, thrilling and suspenseful story. 

His new thriller, The Cobra (G.P. Putnam’s Sons), continues in that fine tradition.

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Tags: on thrillers and crime by Paul Davis
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