Mike…Mike, please hear me out…

I have nothing against Christmas. Adult though I am, I still look forward to it every year. In fact, last Christmas I bought not one but two advent calendars; one for home and one for the office, and not just because I love chocolate. Because I love Christmas. So you can imagine the joy I felt when I woke up yesterday morning and it was Christmas. I smiled as I passed the heartwarming red displays in the department store windows. I delighted in the wreaths hung jauntily off the lampposts. But encountering the holiday displays at the Duane Reade gave me pause. Why? Because it was November 1st, Mike. November 1st. [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes, Meg gives advice to famous people by Meg Boyle
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They’re proud; they’re loud; they are selfish in the extreme, and simple in their thinking. And none of those traits is inherently bad or stupid. Within the extremely generous confines of American political discourse, at least when it comes to the rightward end of the spectrum, the Tea Party Movement is just another outbreak of self-righteous me-first I-want-my-country-back ideology. It’s the thinking of people who believe a mild and flawed health care reform law imperils their very way of life. [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes, politics & government by Jeff Scheuer
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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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It’s been a long, hot summer — the longest, hottest summer I can remember. Thankfully, it is coming to an end. One of the few memories I have of this summer is reading a relentless stream of Facebook status updates telling me how much fun my friends are having. Am I the only one who isn’t having an amazing summer, or am I the only one who isn’t lying? [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes by Nancy DeGregorio
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“Sarah Palin, the smartest woman in America? With all due respect, I must refudiate.”

Refudiate away. Name her countless verbal transgressions, cite her taunting vacuum of legitimate political and legal knowledge, snort at her so-called feminist identity. I won’t deny you. I’m right there with you. Sarah Palin has never struck me as a genius. In fact, I’ve always gotten the impression she’s the type who’s unable to read without moving her lips. [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes, politics & government by Sarah Ameigh
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There’s one man who possesses all the skills and experience to get the BP spill under control. Love him or hate him, Dick Cheney is the man. He’s steered an oil services company (Halliburton). He’s been Secretary of Defense, proving he knows how to manage huge endeavors such as Operation Desert Storm. And he takes a heart attack the way the rest of us knock back a shot of Jack Daniel’s, with a wince and a smile.
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Tags: diatribes, politics & government by Daniel Putkowski
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“He was supposed to be competent,” declared no lesser a luminary than Peggy Noonan last week. Welcome to the party, sister.

More appropriately, a brief overview of the current Oval Office occupant’s record reveals a staggering inability to rise to the level of presidential performance. [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes, politics & government by Daniel Putkowski
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Abby Sunderland, the sixteen year old who was feared lost at sea, is safe. Sunderland had been attempting to become the youngest person to sail solo around the world when her boat went missing on Thursday. After an agonizing stretch of twenty hours with no contact from the teen, a search plane spotted her boat and confirmed her safety. Sunderland will abandon her voyage and return home to California. This is truly wonderful news. And now that we’ve all breathed a huge sigh of relief, I have one question: Why the hell was a child allowed to sail around the world by herself? [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes, trusted media & news by Meg Boyle
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Another Earth Day has come and gone. As I sit here reflecting on this day, the fortieth anniversary of the first Earth day in 1970, I think about my carbon footprint. My windows are closed and my ceiling fans are on full blast. My clothes are tossing in the dryer. I just took out the trash, full of my child’s disposable diapers and maybe some plastic bottles that I “accidentally” dropped in the can. I used paper towels to wipe off the kitchen counters. And now I am watching television as I type this, which is to say that I am not watching television, but have it on as energy-wasting background noise. [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes, environment & nature by Nancy DeGregorio
1 Comment »

Driving to Philadelphia isn’t particularly difficult. I’ve done it before with little trouble, receiving only a handful of horns and expletives for my efforts. Why I chose to opt for Greyhound last weekend is still unclear. Maybe I felt lazy. Maybe I thought I’d save gas money. Maybe I just lost my damn mind. 

Yeah. The last one.  [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes, travel & foreign lands by Sarah Ameigh
1 Comment »

Today, kids, we’re going to talk about the pregnant clusterfuck that is the Internet.

It used to be that buying concert tickets was part of a larger experience that began with the release of a new album and ended in the parking lot of a smoke-filled arena.

The experience, for all intents and purposes, began and ended in a parking lot. [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes, music by David A. Brensilver
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A transgender student has been suspended from school in Fulton, Mississippi. I grew up in Queens, a big part of an even bigger city, and if a transgender teen came into my public high school in the late ’80s, people would have definitely turned to stare. Some would have wondered what that freaky kid was doing. Some would have made fun of him. Some might have threatened him (but more likely, they would have just been threatened by him). But certainly someone in the school would have accepted him. It probably wouldn’t have been the guys on the football team — but no one went to their games anyway. [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes, his & hers by Amy Boshnack
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It’s been a while since I’ve had time to write. I finally got a new job and being busy is a welcomed burden. When thinking about what I wanted to share with my friends who read WFTC, the unfolding of spring flowers and budding trees quickly lured me. I penned some flowery — all pun intended — prose about time change and season change and blah, blah, blah. I almost sounded bright-eyed and dreamy.

Thank God for cousins, co-workers, ice skates, and babies. I want to talk about parenting. [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes, family & parenting by Nicole Ball
3 Comments »

Dear Friend … I am writing to you as a reliable and trustworthy person who has received many, MANY pleas to secure million-of-dollars in found money, at the e-mail request of someone in a foreign land, and unusual circumstances.

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Tags: diatribes by Jeff McDonald
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Two of my favorite things in the world are fine food and game shows. There is nothing I enjoy more than curling up on the Victorian settee to watch the latest episodes of “Jeopardy!” and “The Price is Right” while eating foie gras-stuffed quail with asparagus and drinking port wine. The extreme pleasure of consuming great food combined with the excitement of a thrilling game show causes the cares of the world to just drift away.

Given my love of food and of game shows, the appearance of the NBC program, Minute to Win it, should be cause for celebration. After all, it is a game show, and it is hosted by a popular figure from the Food Network.

You might think that one such as I would enjoy the Food Network. You might think that, but do not say it out loud, because if I hear you, I will remove my gauntlet and slap you across the face. [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes, television by Ricky Sprague
10 Comments »

The president’s health care initiative has been stalled by politics as usual and partisan rancor. This is a great tragedy, not only because people are literally dying in the streets from lack of access to government-run health care, but because it also gives the impression that Americans are “ungovernable.” Despite what you might have read in Newsweek, it’s only some Americans that are “ungovernable.” I, for one, want to be governed in the worst way; which is why I have so much faith in our current leaders. To that end, I’ve come up with a plan to help the president jump-start what is becoming a stalled presidency: appointing a bunch of new czars. Czars are great, since they don’t require congressional approval and can therefore get started doing the people’s work right away. They can also do pretty much whatever they want, because they don’t have to worry about being accountable to those “ungovernable” American citizens, like my neighbor who shall remain nameless. The president hasn’t yet taken full advantage of his power to appoint czars, so below is just a small sample of the czars I’d like to see him appoint, to bypass all the partisan gamesmanship and really get to work helping us:

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Tags: diatribes, politics & government by Ricky Sprague
2 Comments »

Hollywood is not fair. Anyone who tells you that Hollywood is like a giant engine and the fuel is ideas, and the best ideas are like premium gasoline and if you have a great idea you can charge $3.45 a gallon is lying to you. I know he’s lying to you on account of I’ve seen Hollywood’s dark, rotting underbelly. I’ve seen it, and it’s just revolting.

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Tags: diatribes, movies by Ricky Sprague
9 Comments »

Maybe you’ve heard about that scandalous Republican PowerPoint presentation delivered by Finance Director Rob Bickhart. According to Politico, the presentation breaks donors into two categories:

The small donors who are the targets of direct marketing are described under the heading “Visceral Giving.” Their motivations are listed as “fear;” “Extreme negative feelings toward existing Administration;” and “Reactionary.”

Major donors, by contrast, are treated in a column headed “Calculated Giving.” Their motivations include: “Peer to Peer Pressure”; “access”; and “Ego-Driven.”

The PowerPoint includes caricatures of Democratic leaders as the Joker and Scoobie-Doo. Of course, cable news has gone bananas, and Republican Chairman Michael Steele has repudiated the material.

But should he? I rise in Bickhart’s defense.

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Tags: diatribes, politics & government by Neil Verma
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In a fortnight I move to an undistinguished town in the middle of Germany, to bring enlightenment and English to the uncouth. I’ve been looking at accommodation websites, sifting through the weirdness for acceptable digs. The real difficulty isn’t the flat, it’s the people. Terrible flatmates are an affliction and a curse. I particularly detest slobs. [Read more →]

Tags: advice, diatribes, terror & war by Walter Aske
2 Comments »

God help me, I love figure skating, especially the men’s competition. You can keep the girls — if I wanted to watch a bunch of under-fed 14 year olds twirl around to Tchaikovsky, I’d crash a suburban ballet recital. The men have…well, they have balls. Know what else I love? My country, so I was thrilled to death last week that the gold medal in men’s figure skating went to America’s own Evan Lysacek, a.k.a. the new Love of my Life (suck it, Michael Phelps). I felt ecstatic, emotional, elated…and then absolutely infuriated when Evgeny Plushenko, who won the silver, started shooting off his mouth and claiming that the gold is rightfully his. Are we going to stand for this, America? [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes, sports by Meg Boyle
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