The Fifth Column
Driving through the backwater mountain towns of West Virginia can be a taxing experience for anyone—especially if you’re a pudgy pseudo-intellectual from New Mexico whose only point of Appalachian cultural reference consists of the oft-spotted McDonalds-Texaco-Pizza Hut triple-threat rest stop. Adding to an ever-growing feeling of bemusement was the smorgasbord of conservative talk-radio filling the […]
Week in Review
A heroic moment in American oratory two Sundays ago, when our President rose before Congress, wiped away his crusties and spoke for longer than five minutes without utterly destroying another facet of American life. Bush emphasized his legacy as one that is pro-dream and anti-totalitarianism, urging us to consider the warning of “the late terrorist Zarqawi”: “We will sacrifice our blood and bodies to put an end to your dreams, and what is coming is even worse.”
Week in Review
A sigh of relief in Washington as former Republican congressman and present director of the Office of Management and Budget Jim Nussle declares that there is little reason to worry in the short-run about our deficit, which is expected to grow to 400 billion dollars by the time President Bush leaves office. The New York […]
Analyze This
Barack Obama–U.S. Senator and Democratic candidate for president–has, if nothing else, my entire extended, voting-age family in a polarized tizzy. My mother isn’t voting for Obama because of his smoker’s teeth–my uncle because his middle name is Hussein. My father likes his health care platform–his father-in-law is filled with warmth by his back story and earnestness. Me? I’m voting for Obama because he won a Grammy.
More Fighting in the War Room
The Democratic Party has promised the electorate change, but is not always clear about what this will mean in practice. There is Obama change with its emphasis on bipartisanship, and there is Big Momma change with its emphasis on taking back the country for liberals. The first kind is an easier case to make to the American people, but it is the second kind that might actually make life better for them.
“Original” Sins
Marked by a certain charged starkness and by an utterly terrifying absurdity, Greenwood’s score to There Will Be Blood is ushered in with trademark twangs and plucks which register as the pulse of the film itself. In “Open Spaces” an ominous nearly-lush melodic darkness is interrupted by a hopeful, yet doomed juxtaposition which eventually melts […]
Dammit, Mamet
An older gentleman strolls out of a restaurant on the upper eastside and sees a bum slumped against the building’s wall. The bum asks for something to eat, and the man rummages in his doggy bag and hands him a baked potato. Appalled, the bum spits and returns the potato. “You got anything else?” he […]
Weekend Page
Dear Reader, My name is Rebecca Gold; I’m a junior, and a proud native of Chicago, Illinois. It’s a new season of the Nass and this time we’re doin’ it up big style like we was in the Casimir Pulaski Day parade. I’ve been entrusted with the responsibility of doing the Weekend Page every other […]