Major college sports, particularly football and basketball, have been a breeding ground for corruption for a long time. As much as I love to watch them, the idea that these are amateur athletes is certainly a questionable one. The money is so huge, and the stakes are so high, it would actually be harder to believe that everything was on the up and up. The scandals have been coming fast and furious in college football recently, with Auburn, Oregon, and Ohio State dealing with some very high profile messes. Fortunately for them, I guess, the big one was waiting in the wings, ready to take the focus off of those schools. The University of Miami, which dealt with a lot of problems back in the late 80s and early 90s, is back in the stew, and it does not look good for the Hurricanes. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Robert Crumb was one of the most important of the Underground Cartoonists of the late 1960s-mid 1970s. He became an icon thanks to creations like “Fritz the Cat” and “Mr. Natural,” the original Zap Comix, and the cover of the Big Brother and the Holding Company album “Cheap Thrills.” His artistic skills are among the best in the history of comics.

His work was fantastically personal. The subject matter was usually bleak, and featured caricatures of sexual violence and depravity that were so exaggerated as to be almost quaint. Very often, it read like the fever dreams of a teenage virgin fantasizing about what he would do with an enormous woman with mythical proportions of chest and buttocks. Crumb’s fantasies were, for the most part, specific to himself, and so reading his works is too often like listening to someone tell you about the really weird dream he had last night. Any satirical elements or broader social commentary tended to be superficial at best, and usually accidental. The greatest tension in his work is the dichotomy of artist vs. diarist. And when he ventures outside his “let-me-tell-you-about-the-really-weird-dream-I-had-last-night” comfort zone, he tends to lose focus. [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, books & writing by Ricky Sprague
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10. “It’s so hot, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s having an affair with the counter lady at Baskin-Robbins.”

9. “It’s so hot, Dick Cheney was caught waterboarding himself.”

8. “It’s so hot, street people are making their own gravy.”

7. “It’s so hot, Charlie Sheen tested positive for Slurpees.”

6. “It’s so hot, I saw an Amish guy buying an air conditioner.”

5. “It’s so hot, former IMF boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn said he was looking forward to spending some time in the cooler.”

4. “It’s so hot, chickens are laying omelets.”

3. “It’s so hot, my car’s GPS lady keeps directing me towards Canada.”

2. “It’s so hot, Hillary Clinton’s been wearing her pantsuit without the pants.”

1. “It’s so hot, Anthony Weiner actually appreciates his wife giving him the cold shoulder.”

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

Tags: Bob Sullivan's top ten everything, environment & nature by Bob Sullivan
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In June, I wrote an overview of Republican candidates for the 2012 presidential nomination, and concluded with the suggestion that readers keep a close watch on Rick Perry, governor of Texas. Well, last weekend Perry declared his candidacy and immediately leaped into second place, behind Mitt Romney (who is a Mormon). That’s what happens when you run against such obvious losers. Now we are swamped with critical articles about Perry and Texas, most of them by people who knew very little about the state or its governor until a few days ago. Today, I will analyze the effectiveness of these criticisms, and once I’m finished you won’t need to read any more articles about Perry (unless I write them, of course).

CRITICISM 1: PERRY IS A MORON [Read more →]

Tags: politics & government, trusted media & news by Daniel Kalder
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Recently, presidential candidate Rick Perry claimed to be skeptical of man-made climate change.

Now, as if on cue, some people at an institution called Pennsylvania State University have come up with a very serious reason for human beings to fear climate change, and their role in it.

Watching from afar, extraterrestrial beings might view changes in Earth’s atmosphere as symptomatic of a civilisation growing out of control – and take drastic action to keep us from becoming a more serious threat, the researchers explain.

This is ridiculous. We all know that we have much more to fear from Sasquatches (“Squatches”), Chupacabras (“Chuppies”), Loch Ness Monsters (“Nessies”), and Moth Men (“Mothies”) than we do from extraterrestrials. [Read more →]

Tags: environment & nature, politics & government by Ricky Sprague
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Tags: politics & government by Alexander Thorburn Hoffman
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I had a crisis a few weeks ago. I was on an airplane, diverted from my original destination, and I didn’t pack a back-up book. Luckily, we eventually got off the plane in Indianapolis, and I picked up The Ice Princess by Camilla Läckberg in the airport bookstore. (I admit that I picked it up because I liked the cover and I’ve been reading some Scandinavian authors lately, so it fit the bill.)  More than entertaining enough to keep me engrossed all the way to Chicago.

The theme of the book seems to be cold. Even the corpse that starts the story is frozen.

“Mercifully, the corpse’s eyes were shut, but the lips were bright blue. A thin film of ice had formed around the torso, hiding the lower half of the body completely…The knees also stuck up through the frozen surface. Alex’s long blonde hair was spread like a fan over the end of the tub but looked brittle and frozen in the cold.” [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, Lisa Reads by Lisa Hura
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Men’s Health and Yahoo! Health conspired to produce an hilariously misleading set of “9 Scariest Food Facts” that aren’t scary, and aren’t actually facts, either. The piece was written by a couple of assholes called “David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding,” apparently as a promotional tool for their pushy book with the yammering title Eat This, Not That! (has there ever been a book with an exclamation point in the title that wasn’t crap? I really don’t know; I’m not trying to be snide).  The piece is almost worth reading as an example of the effective use of unsourced half truths and lies to promote an agenda.

The first “fact”?

1. Nutritious food costs 10 times more than junk food.
University of Washington researchers calculated the cost discrepancy between healthy food and junk foods and found that 2,000 calories of junk food rings up at a measly $3.52 a day. Yet for 2,000 calories of nutritious grub, the researchers plunked down $36.

The asshole authors, David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding, do not include a link to the study to which they are alluding. (They do, however, include a link to a promotional webpage for their fingerwaving screed Buy This, Not That! excuse me I mean Eat This, Not That!) So I had to google it for myself, because I don’t trust a couple of bluenosing jerks just because they say something alarming. And it turns out that the “study” in question does not say what the asshole authors, David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding, claim it does. In fact, it says nothing of the sort. [Read more →]

Tags: health & medical, trusted media & news by Ricky Sprague
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When it started, it was perfect: the one thing Americans like more than a winner is alliteration. Since Tiger seemed to win every other tournament (and, even in defeat, drew more interest than all other golfers combined), it made sense to give fans checking golf highlights direct access to the only thing many of them gave a damn about: Eldrick Woods. Thus ESPN and the Golf Channel and Fox Sports and countless other sites added a Tiger Tracker (Sports Illustrated offers the clickable heading “Tiger Woods News”; way to keep it formal, guys), so you could instantly see how close the icon was to claiming another title. To all those responsible for this journalistic innovation, I make a plea: keep it going forever. [Read more →]

Tags: sports by Sean Cunningham
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Whenever I see children exploited by their parents as part of some misguided attempt to feel better about themselves, or to “live vicariously” through their children, I become filled with righteous indignation. Actually, I feel a sort of sadness mixed with superiority. And a dash of moral outrage. These children don’t know what they’re doing. They’re simply trying to please the parents who are using them for their own selfish ends. It’s pathetic. It’s venal. It’s a form of child abuse. I can’t think of anything that’s worse.

No, no… I’m not talking about those strange, sad parents who put their children through the burdens of beauty pageants. I’m talking about this:

For crying out loud, why can’t we just let kids be kids?

Contract kids video via reason hit & run. See also: Iced Borsht.

Tags: family & parenting, politics & government by Ricky Sprague
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My seven-year-old son, who has once been immortalized in this column for his masterful rendition of a the Jaws poster, informed me last Friday morning that he was planning a puppet show: “Mario Brothers.”

This meant I had work to do.

We went to the computer and printed pictures of the characters (no drawing this time; he wanted precision) and then we went out back to find sufficiently straight sticks to use to hold the cut-out characters. After an hour of box-cutting, stick-taping and theatrical logistics, the play was ready to begin. No script. This was to be improvisational puppet theater. Puppeteering without a net. [Read more →]

Tags: artistic unknowns by Chris Matarazzo by Chris Matarazzo
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“The biggest surprise in a man’s life is old age.” Thus spake Leo Tolstoy, who made it to 82.

It is hard to disagree, especially if you find yourself, as I do, on the cusp of three score and ten, the so-called Biblical age. Of course, old age is not surprising in the sense that it is unexpected, but rather that it turns out to be so different from what you may have expected. [Read more →]

Tags: getting older, that's what he said, by Frank Wilson by Frank Wilson
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Despite the fact that football just got rolling, with NFL teams starting preseason play, golf was at the center of the sports world this week. Some of the news is covered below in Bad Sports, but I’d first like to focus on the positive. Keegan Bradley won the PGA Championship on Sunday. Who, you ask? That’s exactly the point. Before this week’s tournament, Bradley, a 25-year-old American, had never played in a major tournament. Even more amazingly, he was five shots back with only three holes to play on Sunday after a triple-bogey on 15. Jason Dufner, another American, appeared to be a shoo-in for the victory. That’s when things took a huge turn. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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10. When you slide into second, you misplace your hip

9. Willie Mays helped you with your stance

8. You’re the only outfielder with a walker

7. When you get to first, you ask for directions to second

6. You get winded standing for The National Anthem

5. Your rookie card is in black and white

4. When buying steroids, you try to get an AARP discount

3. Instead of pine tar on your bat, you’re using Poligrip

2. When everyone else is having their Seventh Inning Stretch, you’re taking your Seventh Inning Nap

1. You try to run around the bases on your Rascal Scooter
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

Tags: Bob Sullivan's top ten everything, sports by Bob Sullivan
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This is not an anti-Michael Vick diatribe. You’ve read that before. Dog fighting does disgust and disturb me. It’s evident Vick took the inherent cruelty of it to another level. He was caught. He served a prison sentence prescribed by our legal system. He was released. Since his release, he’s been active denouncing dog fighting, even working with some members of animal humane societies. He has spent time building himself back into condition to play at the highest level in a professional sport I enjoy a lot for a team I root for. [Read more →]

Tags: sports, virtual children by Scott Warnock by Scott Warnock
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I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we haven’t had any global health scares like Swine Flu, Avian Flu or SARS recently. Why? Well, with all the economic misery in the United States and Europe, revolutionary unrest in the Middle East, rioting mobs in the UK plus the usual war and famine elsewhere, things are so awful right now that apparently we do not need hallucinatory fears to stimulate the collective nervous system. We have enough actual worries of our own. [Read more →]

Tags: terror & war, travel & foreign lands, trusted media & news by Daniel Kalder
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Tags: politics & government, trusted media & news by Alexander Thorburn Hoffman
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Eric van Lustbader’s third installment in the Jack McClure series, Blood Trust is just as exciting and fast-paced as the first two books, if not quite as believable. It’s full of foreign locales, double agents, evil billionaires and hidden agendas – everything a spy novel needs! It also takes us deeper into the relationships between our key characters, primarily the relationship between McClure and former first daughter, Alli Carson, and the relationship between Carson and Jack’s dead daughter, Emma. [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, Lisa Reads by Lisa Hura
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The United States of America, except for a short run during Clinton’s second term, has been running deficits and accumulating debt for decades. As Fareed Zakaria points out in this week’s issue of Time (“The Debt Deal’s Failure“) Ronald Reagan was the first modern President to cut taxes dramatically without accounting for proportionate cuts in spending. George H. and Bill Clinton raised taxes and curtailed spending to minimize debt and even create a budget surplus, but W. came in and slashed taxes, secured a drug benefit, and started two foreign wars. Still the deficit to GDP ratio W. ran before the financial collapse of 2008 was modest compared to his predecessors. When he left office the national debt was roughly $10 trillion dollars, $4 trillion more than when he took office. [Read more →]

Tags: money, politics & government by Robert O'Hara
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What was the central lesson that the Great Powers learned from the carnage of World War II? I firmly believe it was “never again”- that is, “never again will we fight a country that has even remotely comparable military strength to our own.” Even so, beating the crap out of weak nations is not always as straightforward as one would imagine.

[Read more →]

Tags: terror & war, travel & foreign lands, trusted media & news by Daniel Kalder
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