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The Long War Between Highbrow and Lowbrow
Pop culture is making us dumber, crasser, more immoral, and, especially, less adult. Such, at least, has been the claim of many a cultural critic. At Slate, Ruth Graham skewered YA fiction as catering to "escapism, instant gratification and nostalgia," and the non-children who read it: "...
Complexity as a Weapon of War
Discussions of global war and violence often come with pleas for nuance, for context, and for historical literacy. That’s reasonable and even commendable. You can’t understand the present without understanding the past; it’s wise to try to learn as much as possible about the contours of confli...
This Week's Writing 11/04/23
A year ago Gusgus wasn’t even a thing. Now look at him!This week was the anniversary of my first year on substack! Pretty cool. Thanks again to all of you who have signed up to read and support me. If you’re not a paid subscriber, consider becoming one so I can keep writing here!Subscribe nowIf ...
The GOP war on budgeting is also a war on democracy
House Republicans this week passed a $14.3 billion Israel aid package which included $14.3 billion in cuts to the IRS.I don’t think US should be providing unconditional aid to Israel given indiscriminate killing of civilians in Gaza. But the cuts to offset the aid are also bad. The money from the ...
When Evil Lurks Makes Evil Smart. Too Smart.
Hey, it was Halloween yesterday! I celebrated by watching a horror film, and reviewing it. A bit late, but you know, for horror fans, Halloween is all year.___I liked When Evil Lurks, but I didn’t love it. That’s somewhat out of sync with the critical consensus,which has been fairly ecstatic. I ...
Intent Is Central to the Definition of Genocide. But Should It Be?
Image: Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term “genocide” and was instrumental in establishing the UN genocide convention.Experts consulted by the UN have said that there is currently “a risk of genocide against the Palestine people.” Over 800 scholars signed a statement warning of “potentiall...
This Week's Writing 10/28/23
Hello all! Another week come and gone; thanks for sticking with me. And here’s what I published!If you read one thing by me this week, read:“Don’t Say,” a collage of made of LGBT writers’ words about silence. (Saint Paul Almanac)PoliticsOn Ken Buck’s brief flirtation with principle. (Pub...
GOP Chaos Is Not A Trump Plot. The Party Is In Fact Fucked.
Tom Emmer, the latest doofus being chewed up in the House Speaker debacle.“Why did Donald act friendly to Emmer and then throw him under the bus?” Allison Gill, aka Mueller, She Wrote, asked on twitter. Her answer: “Because trump is a fascist and he doesn't want a speaker. He wants the Hou...
Can Superheroes Do Without Prisons? Invincible Says...Sort Of!
Most superheroes are in the business of foiling criminals and then putting them in jail. With the occasional arguable exception of a Suicide Squad film here or there, superheroes are usually on the side of the cops and the prison guards. They don’t question whether prison, or mass incarceration, i...
The Super Powers mini-series and the villains who control creativity.
Jack Kirby is best known as the creator of beloved Marvel characters like Captain America, Thor, the Hulk, and the Fantastic Four in the 1960s. Twenty years later, though, at the end of his career, he was making promotional comics for DC’s new line of toys.The 1984-85 Super Powers comics, as they ...
This Week's Writing 10/21/23
The blog is coming to the magnificent end of its first year (much like the magnificent tail of the kitty.) I’ve almost got 5000 subscribers; hoping to hit that before the 30th, which will be the official anniversary (more or less.) Consider sharing if you’d like to help me reach this arbitrary g...
The 1973 War and the 1973 Peace
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, 1980.The Hamas attacks and the subsequent Israeli response have led commenters to a couple of historical comparisons. The first is 9/11. The second is the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.The parallels here are clear; the Hamas attacks, 9/11, and the 1973 war all involved devast...
Langston Hughes, Of His Time
Image: Langston Hughes by Carl Van Vechten, 1936I just read M.L. Rosenthal’s 1967 New Modern Poetry anthology, which focused on postwar poetry. It’s a fun time-capsule. Way back in the mid-60s, important poetry looked substantially different than it does now. Robert Lowell was more important tha...
Israel and American Jewish Identity
The violence in the Middle East has led numerous Jewish people to explain what it means to be Jewish in this moment. This is entirely understandable. It’s also, for me, been somewhat alienating.One person on social media said that Jewish identity is built around the Holocaust, and that Jews in the...
This Week's Writing 10/14/23
Hello again! Comforting pic for what’s been a pretty horrible week.Not as much writing as sometimes, but still a bunch published this week. If you’re not a paid subscriber, consider becoming one so I can keep scribbling? Also you’ll get to see my music track of the week, which can be fun if yo...
The Economic Anxiety Explanation of Fascism Is Wrong, and Worse, Fatalist
Image: Jacob Lawrence, The Legend of John Brown (1941/1977), no. 6: “John Brown formed an organization among the colored people of the Adirondack woods to resist the capture of any fugitive slave” [source]___Fascism is caused by economic anxiety.That’s not true. Study after study has shown tha...
Death in Paradise, Violence in the Colonies
Death in Paradise is a completely unremarkable British detective series set in the Caribbean. Its first episode is a typically breezy nothing—except that, almost by the way, it directly confronts the series’ mostly ignored colonial dynamics. That confrontation isn’t particularly honest or insi...
This Week's Writing 10/7/23
Here’s what I wrote this week.If You Read One Thing By Me This Week, ReadFind editors who like you. (Litmag News)PoliticsStop debating whether Christian nationalism is “really” Christian. (Sojourners)Kevin McCarthy is GOP incompetence made flesh. (Public Notice)Suggesting Trump as Speaker show...
No Happy Ending: Steven Universe as Bleak Parable
When a completed, beloved television series spins off a film, the result is going to be, one way or another, an exercise in nostalgia. At worst, you get Star Trek: The Motion Picture, where the bulk of the movie is characters staring mournfully into the distance to remind you that you too, are suppo...
This Week's Writing 10/1/23
Here’s what I published last week:If You Read One Thing By Me This Week, Read:Why I’m okay with being called a content creator. (EIH)PoliticsBiden is presiding over a labor renaissance. (Public Notice)The GOP love corruption so much they won’t even condemn Menendez. (Independent)It’s okay to...
It’s Okay to Criticize Feinstein
California Senator Dianne Feinstein died yesterday. She was 90 and in ill health, and there had been increasing calls for her to step down. Her death also raises major questions for the 2024 California Senate contest. Whoever California Governor Gavin Newsome appoints to the seat is going to have a ...
Chris Arnade and The Limits of Real America Reporting
After the rise of former President Donald Trump, there was a deluge of what might be termed "Real America Reporting," whereby journalists seek out supposedly typical middle-American voters—generally white, generally rural, often eating in diners—in order to conduct sympathetic interviews...
Why I’m Okay With Being Called a ‘Content Creator’
“To hear people talk about ‘content’ makes me feel like the stuffing inside a sofa cushion,” Emma Thompson told an audience of drama students last week. “You don’t want to hear your stories described as ‘content’ or your acting or your producing described as ‘content.’ That’s j...
This Week's Writing 9/23/23
Eustacia and Ecgwynn, reminding us they are litter mates. Awww.Here’s what I published this week while not staring at kitties.If you read one thing by me this week, read:Empathy doesn’t make you less racist. (EIH)PoliticsThe right is silencing Anne Frank for the same reason the Nazis did. (Indep...
Empathy Doesn't Make You Less Racist
How do you solve racism and bigotry? One common answer is empathy. If oppressors could put themselves in the place of the oppressed, the argument goes, they could recognize the humanity of the marginalized, and they would reject oppression.Scholar Saidiya Hartman isn’t so sure that empathy is a so...
Interviewing Trump is Useless
Over the weekend, Kristen Welker of Meet the Press interviewed Trump and treated him like a regular politician rather than an authoritarian fascist insurrectionist who collects indictments like candy and who, oh yes, was found liable for rape. My colleague Aaron Rupar has the depressing details at P...
Are the Supremes a Rock Band?
Note: If you've got Apple Music, you can listen to a playlist of songs/artists mentioned in this post here.______This weekend I wrote about Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner’s racist, sexist defense of his racist sexist book, The Masters, in which he interviewed “masters” of rock music—i...
This Week's Writing 9/17/23
Eustacia reclines as another week passes. Next week! I’ve got a piece about the Matrix and empathy, a piece on Stop Making Sense, one on the no true Christian fallacy—and lots more.But! Here’s what I wrote last week. Thanks to all of you who support me and keep me scribbling!If You Read One Th...
Jann Wenner Is Garbage. But Not Because He's a Boomer.
Jann Wenner, legendary founder of Rolling Stone magazine, has always been a racist, sexist ass. He decided recently that he wanted to make sure everyone still knew it.As his venue for self-humiliation, he chose a New York Times Q&A with journalist David Marchese. Marchese asked Wenner why his new bo...
The Shylock of the Lord of the Rings
Readers of Lord of the Rings aren’t really supposed to root for Gollum. But if, like me, you’re Jewish, you might be tempted to cheer him on when he gets his teeth into the hand that feeds him, and bites down hard.What does Gollum have to do with being Jewish, you ask? Well, he’s an antisemiti...
