Wade Davis, a marginal NFL player in the early part of the aughts (or whatever we call the last decade….I don’t like “2000s”), has come out as gay in recent days. Davis was never on an active, regular-season NFL roster, but he played for the Tennessee Titans for a couple of preseasons after a successful college career at Weber State. Of the many places in society that have continued to harbor bigotry and prejudice against homosexuals, professional sports is one that has been, and I expect will continue to be, one of the final holdouts. Athletes, and sports fans right along with them, often count machismo among their most respected traits. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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10. Their affectionate name for you is ‘Meal Ticket’

9. Instead of jumping on the bed to wake you, they use IEDs

8. Before every barbecue, they fill the grill to the brim with lighter fluid

7. They gave you a “World’s Greatest Dad” mug, but they crossed out ‘Greatest’ and wrote in ‘Dumbest’

6. They bought Mom The Big Book of Divorce Attorneys

5. On Father–Son Day at their school, they brought in a street wino

4. They keep claiming that the circular saw they bought you is “shower safe”

3. They’re always asking Mom, “What were you thinking?!”

2. Last Father’s Day, they gave you a Do-It-Yourself Vasectomy Kit

1. They replaced all your Lipitor with Tic Tacs
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

Tags: Bob Sullivan's top ten everything, family & parenting by Bob Sullivan
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Disney taught us that, “when you wish upon a star, your dreams come true.” Unfortunately, if your dream is to have both of your parents live to see you succeed, you’re sheer out of luck. In fact, of Disney’s forty full-length animated features from 1937 until 2000, I know of only one where the protagonist’s parents remain alive for the entire film.* Then there’s the fact that just about every super-powered hero is an orphan. If this isn’t bad enough, one or both of the hero’s adoptive parents often dies too! Superman lost his adoptive dad, Spider-Man lost his uncle, and Luke Skywalker lost both his aunt and uncle. With the Amazing Spider-Man movie set for release this summer, and that movie actually exploring the mysterious back-story about Peter Parker’s real parents, I thought it would be a good time to delve into the topic of why so many of our heroes—both super and animated—are orphans, and what the message means for all of us. [Read more →]

Tags: movies, religion & philosophy by Marc Oromaner
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Tags: drugs & alcohol, health & medical, on the law, politics & government by Alexander Thorburn Hoffman
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Ray Bradbury is dead. I’ll miss him like an old friend, even though I never met the man.

Tags: books & writing by Chris Matarazzo
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The gentleman we will call Brugan is 90% real, his balance is made up of input from other folks present at our chat who shall remain nameless but not voiceless. Recall that YOU are 90% water. Brugan is a twenty-something light-skinned brother about as ghetto as Arthur Ashe. He is feeling his oats and so he should. He has a plum gig; he is breaking into the business of politics as an advisor to a challenger to John Lewis for his House seat. That challenger is, of course, a Democrat and his aspiration to replace Lewis is, ah, quite a project. But this cat was definitely loving life, on the payroll of a real, honest-to-god campaign. We have the opportunity here to observe the gunslinger in his pupal form. [Read more →]

Tags: politics & government, race & culture by Ken Watson
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I really wanted to love this book.

I definitely loved Heads You Lose, the wonderfully fun and zany novel that Lisa Lutz wrote with her ex-boyfriend. (Read my review here.) And I have to say that Trail of the Spellmans is pretty entertaining, for the most part. It’s a continuation of The Spellman Files, a series of novels about a rather dysfunctional family detective agency. Isabel Spellman, a 30-something year old detective, working for the family agency, is in the middle of several cases. Her father has a secret. Her mother is behaving bizarrely and no one seems to comment on it. Her brother and sister are feuding and neither will tell Isabel what the problem is. Her boyfriend’s mother is coming to visit and her tiny niece, Sydney, calls everything a banana. It’s enough to push anyone to a breakdown. [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, Lisa Reads by Lisa Hura
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I have been declared Emperor of the World. Let us not waste time explaining why or how; let’s all simply accept the fact that we are better off, as a result; hence, my next decree:

Emperor’s Decree 2341-3A: The Apple computer company makes superior machines; however, “Apple People” must be stopped. At all cost. Any person who incessantly advertises for or praises the Apple computer company (who is not an employee of said company or the spouse of an employee thereof), is, henceforth, declared an outlaw. (They charge you three-million dollars for a computer and you energetically and actively advertise for free for them? Come — as they say — on.) Any driver who displays a once-bitten Apple insignia on the back of his or her car or who is seen wearing a T-shirt displaying the same insignia shall be taken prisoner. Similarly, anyone who posts numerous Facebook stati which extol the wonders of Apple will be summarily arrested by the Imperial Police. 2341-3B: As a sub-decree, while the Emperor believes in freedom of religion, it is, nevertheless, henceforth illegal to become either a congregate or a clergy member of the developing Church of Steve Jobs — the reasoning for this being that if Leonardo DaVinci doesn’t have his own church, Jobs shouldn’t either. Further, Apple is a company, my minions, not your kid. Stop posting pictures of the new iPhone next to little Bradley’s First Holy Communion shots. It’s creepy.

The Punishment: The Imperial Wizard has conjured a room of infinite black space. Within this room, there is an illuminated podium on which rests a gleaming new iPad. Violators will be released into this dark chamber. When they droolingly approach the iPod — which they will — a giggling, naked doppelgänger of Bill Gates will appear, snatch the iPad, and scamper off into the darkness. When the violator is tired of chasing the prestidigitated dodecazillionare (whom he will never catch), he or she will be released for another chance at well-balanced, rational life.

The Emperor shall grace the world with a new decree each Tuesday morning

Tags: technology, The Emperor decrees by Chris Matarazzo
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Few thinkers were more different than David Hume and Immanuel Kant. One was a cynical, whiskey swilling Scot bon vivant and realist who enjoyed making people crazy with paradoxes in the pursuit of truth through dialogue, discussion and debate. The other was a German metaphysicist and idealist influenced by Pietism and theology. Yet, Kant read Hume, and re-examined his own thought based on what he’d encountered, writing that “Hume awakened me from my doctrinal slumbers…” We all need to find our own David Hume sometime… [Read more →]

Tags: damned lies, politics & government by Mike Farrell
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Paul Williams, a boxer who has been a champion at the welterweight level, was scheduled to fight for the middleweight belt currently held by Canelo Alvarez in September. That bout will no longer be occurring. Last weekend, Williams crashed his motorcycle while on his way to a wedding, and he is now paralyzed from the waist down. This is a tragedy in a number of ways, the main one being that it so clearly could have been easily avoided. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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I want to be a role model. I want to be a good citizen. I want my kids and their friends to look at me proudly, maybe even marvel a bit. So I do what I can, which has included purchasing the ultimate patriot machine: The reel lawnmower.

[Read more →]

Tags: environment & nature, virtual children by Scott Warnock by Scott Warnock
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10. Trying to cash in on jukebox musicals like Mamma Mia and Rock of Ages, your new musical is called Menudo

9. No elementary-school-level play has ever won the top prize before

8. It’s called You’re a Good Man, Charlie Sheen

7. All the dialogue was translated into Lithuanian, because it lost something in the original

6. The marquee reads “Johnny Knoxville is Willie Loman”

5. Your idea for an ‘all mime’ production of My Dinner with Andre never really worked

4. When the premiere ended, the audience shouted “Author! Author!” while boiling tar and stirring in feathers

3. Your play is the first pro-Catholic pornographic musical – and they’ve already honored The Book of Mormon

2. The Tony Awards Management Committee has a photo of you on its wall with a bull’s-eye drawn on it

1. You unwisely named your production Theater Closed for Renovations
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

Tags: art & entertainment, Bob Sullivan's top ten everything by Bob Sullivan
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There comes a point in every individual’s lifetime when he or she must face the inevitable question: should I read a 307 page mystical- psychedelic Chilean-French science fiction tarot epic that was originally published in the same format as a Tintin book?

The answer is to be found between pages 188-201 of Alejandro Jodorowsky and Jean “Moebius” Giraud’s The Incal. During this sequence the protagonist John DiFool participates in the sacred five thousand year games of the Bergs, a race of beaked aliens awaiting regeneration:

[Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, books & writing, religion & philosophy by Daniel Kalder
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U.S. News, May 30, 2012
Fox Airs 4-minute Video Attack on Obama

It’s not quite a political ad but it sure looks like one.

Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” aired a four-minute video today attacking President Obama. The video is made in the same style as the most negative of political ads, complete with frightening music, graphics and voiceovers. Obama’s words are juxtaposed on screen with images of a dystopian America.

I watch Fox, CNN, and MSNBC all the time. And I can tell you that not one of these news outlets is unbiased. In fact the reason I watch all three of them in steady rotation is so I can find some sort of truth to what is going on in our country. [Read more →]

Tags: politics & government, television by Robert O'Hara
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Tags: health & medical, on the law, politics & government by Alexander Thorburn Hoffman
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