David Carr, who survived cocaine addiction to end up writing for the Times, has a snarky little piece about an old acquaintance in today’s paper. Nikki Finke, manifesting as the blog Deadline Hollywood Daily, apparently strikes fear into any number of executive Hollywood hearts.
Among movie executives, the stories of Ms. Finke’s aggressiveness are legion, but [...]
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
From the Land of 1000 Judy Millers
Posted in Uncategorized on July 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Cursing both houses…
Posted in Obamamerica, Uncategorized on October 23, 2008 | 1 Comment »
There is an interesting clip from a Real News interview of Howard Zinn up on Al Giordano’s top-quality blog, The Field. Responding to questions about Nader, a third party, and how to break out of the two-party system in order to drive more radical change, Zinn points out that Nader’s transplantation into the electoral arena has [...]
McCain’s voting record
Posted in McLame, Uncategorized on May 9, 2008 | 1 Comment »
As a West Wing junkie (at least for the first three or four seasons, via DVD!) I’m really tickled by the fiction-meets-reality of the current kerfuffle about whether McLame voted for Bush in 2000, as reported by the NYT. Arianna made the charge on Monday:
On her Huffington Post Web site on Monday, Ms. Huffington, the [...]
Depart, I say!
Posted in Uncategorized on May 7, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
You have sat here too long for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!
—MP Leo Amery, using the works of Oliver Cromwell to berate Neville Chamberlain, 9 May 1940
No one can accuse Hillary Clinton of sitting around, but large numbers [...]
Out with the “new”
Posted in Uncategorized on May 5, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
An interesting synchronicity is presenting itself on either side of the anglophone Atlantic—New is looking pretty Old. In the UK, Gordon Brown’s New Labour (well, Blair’s New Labour and Gordon’s inheritance) has taken a blasting in local council elections. The highlight of this disaster has been the replacement of Red Ken as London’s mayor by [...]
Why was *he* in Vietnam?
Posted in Uncategorized on April 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Something even Barak Obama has been doing this primary season has been irritating the heck out of me, and I wonder if I’m the only one. For context, I should say that I’m of an age to have the dubious pleasure of already loathing a US president so intensely that I don’t have enough [...]
First peep in ages
Posted in Uncategorized on October 25, 2006 | Leave a Comment »
Almost a year—the environment has continued to leave me basically speechless. But it doesn’t have to be a totally vacant lot. As The General says,
There is so much to learn about the glorious Republican candidates running in the service of our Bush…here is a list of reading material so that you can [...]
Big Balagan’s new home
Posted in Uncategorized on April 3, 2006 | 1 Comment »
Hello—this is the new home of Big Balagan, formerly lodging at bigbalagan.typepad.com. I've transfered the old content. And I feel another fit of blogging coming on…
Read my lips
Posted in Uncategorized on March 4, 2005 | Comments Off
I have to admit I’ve been trying to see behind the screen that is the Administration’s Social Security so-called reform. I’ve come to expect such a high level of political killer instinct from the Bush Rovers that the apparent flop of the social security initiative, after its announcement from the bullpit of the State of [...]
Wolf amongst wolves
Posted in Uncategorized on February 23, 2005 | Comments Off
Harvard president Lawrence Summers—his faculty "threatens open revolt"! So he’s going to "temper his style" and treat people "more respectfully"…see the NYT story.
Just months before this latest flap, in an
essay for Harvard’s alumni magazine, Summers argued for a measure of
autonomy as the University’s chief.
“At the same time,” he wrote,
“we have also seen that the team [...]
I Sing the Body Electric Kool Aid
Posted in Uncategorized on February 23, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
Reading obits about Hunter Thompson, I reflect on the fact that I drank Wild
Turkey pretty much exclusively for years after first reading Fear and Loathing.
The other drugs I came to on my own—though
I didn’t have a gonzo approach to them at all. That would be my late brother Ewen, who had a
similar taste to [...]
As I Please…
Posted in Uncategorized on January 5, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
I will never claim to write like Orwell, but I would like to consider claiming him as a sort of disembodied blog father figure. He wrote a lot of essays in what were some of his era’s most accessible print media. He wrote with a manifest assumption that most people think about the things of [...]
