tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50951252011-04-21T17:37:28.081-05:00Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02817956842064601807noreply@blogger.comBlogger81100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095125.post-1103195464327805942004-12-16T04:13:00.000-06:002006-04-17T12:04:02.990-05:00

I found that I enjoyed posting more on bigger, established blogs and engaging others in discussion and debate. So I'm going to leave this up as a convenient repository for my info while I go around and post on other blogs.Within two major political sites, I have what you might call blogs-within-blogs. Click either of the following links, and you'll go straight to my posts:Daily KosBooMan

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02817956842064601807noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095125.post-1090515247973610002004-07-22T11:29:00.000-05:002005-08-08T01:02:13.186-05:00

Trey Anastasio was on Charlie Rose recently, trying to explain why he had decided (against the wishes of the rest of the band) to take Phish on one last tour and then give it up for good (though he will continue his solo career.I like his music, but what really caught my attention was a story he told about the retired American opera diva Beverly Sills. She told him, he said, that one day she

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02817956842064601807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095125.post-1090418552133220562004-07-21T08:49:00.000-05:002005-08-08T01:02:38.153-05:00

Molly Ivins wrote this paean to the US of A before Independence Day. But I'm a slacker, so I'm blogging it a couple weeks and change afterwards. You gotta problem widdat?We progressives often get a rep as "hating" America, or at least being kind of snotty about patriotism and whatnot (and sometimes, we deserve that rep--think Noam Chomsky). So it's nice to see a great writer (and great

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02817956842064601807noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095125.post-1089696908652230562004-07-13T00:25:00.000-05:002005-08-08T01:03:01.740-05:00

I've often complained about how I hate CGI (computerised special effects) in movies. They have a kind of sheen and way of moving that does not look right. It's like "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" or something, but not in a good way.Well, I found Spider-Man 2 even crappier than most on the CGI front. The movie overall wasn't as great as I had been led to believe, but it was entertaining--a three star

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02817956842064601807noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095125.post-1089572885634780342004-07-11T13:44:00.000-05:002005-08-08T01:04:00.180-05:00

It's been said before, but Paddy Chayefsky's brilliant film Network is not only looking more and more prescient, it's getting to look less and less outrageous in comparison to contemporary programming. The two latest culprits?(1) "There's Something About Miriam": A "Bachelorette" type show with a bigtime twist. Unbeknownst to "her" heterosexual bachelor suitors, Miriam is packing a little

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02817956842064601807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095125.post-1087382736811057262004-06-16T05:44:00.000-05:002005-08-08T01:05:52.736-05:00

That's what the Democratic National Committee promised on the section of their website reserved for suggestions for additions to their platform. So I weighed in with an idea I've had for a while. Tell me what you think!So far as I know, this is a completely original idea. Thus, it may seem at first glance to be too far outside the usual debates over taxes. But in part for just that reason, I

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02817956842064601807noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095125.post-1087362160287339732004-06-15T23:55:00.000-05:002005-08-08T01:06:11.360-05:00

Maybe I should have said "Props to Yahoo!!" since Yahoo! already comes with its own exclamation mark. ;-)Anyway, I signed on to my email account just now to find out that my two accounts have gone from the big red warning bar (92% and 96% full, respectively), to a soothing green 2 and 4 percent. Aaaaahhhhh...It's only now fully clear to me how much stress those red bars had been causing. It was

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02817956842064601807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095125.post-1087300995808856302004-06-15T07:02:00.000-05:002005-08-08T01:06:35.256-05:00

During the last week (which seemed to go on for years, didn't it?) of All Reagan All the Time, I kept wondering, "what's all this about how Reagan wasn't hated like Bush? Did I imagine an '80s with lots of hard-edged leftie Reagan haters?" Then as now, the way I recalled it, the people who really detested the president were a relatively small minority, sure. But they were visible. Think punks

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02817956842064601807noreply@blogger.com2