I have often suggested that Eric Rudolph, who for five years successfully evaded the largest federal manhunt in U.S. history--until he surrendered himself to a rookie sheriff's deputy in the alley behind a local supermarket, exemplifies the modern fugitive. The fugitive summons forth the great machinery of government: scores of armed agents, ballistic tests and… Continue reading Eric Rudolph and The Lone Wolf
Category: Pop Culture
Is this fireman a little too happy?
This firetruck is a Melissa & Doug puzzle our son used to play with. I was staring at the puzzle the other day, in an odd moment of nothing to do. And it dawned on me that perhaps one of the firemen is a little too happy? Now, I'm not the kind of person inclined… Continue reading Is this fireman a little too happy?
Puff the Magic Cereal Box
A while ago I posted a few pics of my cereal box wall. I still occasionally come across a cereal box worth photographing, even if it's not in wall form. Here is "Organic Wild Puffs"---one of the trippiest cereal boxes I've ever seen (larger version). Decorated in faux-Aztec imagery, the box suggests a cereal that… Continue reading Puff the Magic Cereal Box
Before Borat…
Long before Borat from Kazakhstan, there was Zladko Vladcik from Molvania... [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp_PIjc2ga4]
Tony Soprano Did Not Get Whacked
It seems that public opinion is shifting toward the idea that Tony Soprano was whacked in The Sopranos series finale after the screen went black. That possibility can never entirely be ruled out, which is part of the brilliance of the abrupt, unsatisfying final seconds of the series. I want to suggest, however, that the… Continue reading Tony Soprano Did Not Get Whacked
More of the Cereal Box Wall
Eventually the cereal box wall had to come down. I wish I had a picture of that sight but I don't. It was a mountain of empty cereal boxes, hundreds of them on my dining room floor in the sad little Pheasant Run apartment complex, where I could see and hear the four lanes of… Continue reading More of the Cereal Box Wall
The Cereal Box Wall
I used to eat a lot of cereal. A lot. Three or four bowls a morning, every morning at 6am just before I went off to teach the teeming hordes of America's youth at an all boy's Jesuit high school. At one point I got sick of throwing out all those cereal boxes--this was 1995,… Continue reading The Cereal Box Wall
Speaking up for Jerry Falwell
Last week I posted a video clip of Jerry Falwell in 1998 delivering a sermon about the potential apocalypse of Y2K. In the clip, Falwell tosses off a weird aside about how he used to teach billy goats to "do what they're best at." It was a funny clip, especially out of context. In a… Continue reading Speaking up for Jerry Falwell
Jerry Falwell on Y2K and Goats
In September 1998, Jerry Falwell delivered a series of sermons about the impending social collapse soon to be delivered to a wicked nation by the "Millennium Bug" -- that is, the disaster that never disastered, Y2K. In the sermons, Falwell likens the Tower of Babel to Y2K, and prophesizes that "God may use Y2K to… Continue reading Jerry Falwell on Y2K and Goats
Are you a guest or a host?
Thinking more about fugitives and detainees, and how fine the line is between them, I am wondering if there is some corollary relationship between the detainee and the detainer, between the prisoner and the warden. I am guided here by a curious etymological fact: the words "guest" and "host" share the same root. Both words… Continue reading Are you a guest or a host?
Fugitives and Detainees in American Social Life
Two years ago in Tracking the Fugitive I predicted that one of the dominant symbolic figures of the 21st century will be the fugitive. In film, literature, music, art, video games--in all these arenas, the fugitive will play a central role. And the reason, I suggested, is because there is no room anymore for fugitives… Continue reading Fugitives and Detainees in American Social Life
KUBARK on 24
Jane Mayer, an uncompromising journalist who's become a thorn in the side of the Bush administration (for her reporting on current U.S. torture tactics and the method of "extraordinary rendition"), has written a New Yorker profile of Joel Surnow, one of the creators of the hit television show 24. Her profile focuses on Surnow's support… Continue reading KUBARK on 24
Disaster Porn: Airplanes Crashes!
Google Maps Mania recently highlighted a website that should satisfy your urge for disaster porn during that dry spell between hurricane season and tornado season: AVCRASH, a Google Map mashup with aviation accident (i.e. plane crash) data from the National Transportation Safety Board. You can narrow your search by time period, location, type of aircraft,… Continue reading Disaster Porn: Airplanes Crashes!
Goodbye 2006, Goodbye US Airways
It's been one long fall. And it's finally come to a close. Late December is when everyone comes out with their "best of" or "worst of" lists, so I thought I'd throw together a few lists. There's no best and no worst, simply a snapshot of some of the things that made life as a… Continue reading Goodbye 2006, Goodbye US Airways
WWJB?
What would Jesus blog? It's a question theologians have pondered for centuries. But the answer, finally, is here. Yes, the Prince of Peace is back, and he's online. Blogging under the cryptic pen-name "Long Haired Jew," Jesus tackles the issues of the day, such as terrorism (although he's no Pope Benedict), global warming, and of… Continue reading WWJB?