Side of the Road

Someone flunked PR 101

2012-02-03T22:18:00.004-05:00

The Komen v. Planned Parenthood debacle continues to fascinate me. As I wrote earlier this week, I disagree with Komen's decision to cut its funding for PP's cancer screening programs (which they reversed today). That hasn't changed... but it's Komen's exceptionally poor handling of the entire situation that's interesting to me, just because of what I do for a living.I've been where Komen's

What color ribbon do cowardly BS-artists wear?

2012-01-31T22:44:00.004-05:00

Last year at my new office's Christmas party, we did that "dirty Santa" game and I ended up with a pink fold-up umbrella. You can never have too many fold-up umbrellas, even though I'm not crazy about pink. But it turns out that it wasn't just any pink umbrella... it was a "breast cancer awareness" pink umbrella, complete with a little fuschia ribbon drawn on it.And my coworkers were all "You got

Bad movies I love: “Forces of Nature”

2012-01-20T20:29:00.003-05:00

Six or seven years ago, my mother went to Great Britain for a several-week-long study program. For some reason, she had to fly into Philadelphia on 4th of July weekend (which, aside from the night of a late-season Eagles home game, might be the worst possible time to visit Philadelphia). There were flight delays, total rental car blackout, emergency bookings on Expedia/Hotwire etc., and an

Which side are you on?

2012-01-18T21:23:00.003-05:00

Earlier tonight, on Facebook, I posted this:This video - its emphasis on white men notwithstanding* - affected me tremendously. Yeah, I cried. I lived through some of these moments, and many more not featured in this video - both mass media moments and the ones that weren't caught on camera, like the first time a friend came out to me, terrified too see how I'd react.(*There are gay women other

Always in need of cowboys

2012-01-18T13:27:00.003-05:00

"Justified" is back! Yay! Weeks ago, I actually wrote on my calendar that the season three premiere was airing last night, which tells me, definitively, that "Justified" matters more to me than the Iowa caucuses.I enjoyed "Justified" in its first season and fell in love with it in its second (excepting one particular issue). As with any show that got that good, one worries that its writers can

Why I'm not on the Tebow bandwagon

2012-01-14T21:52:00.004-05:00

I'm probably going to get football-jinxed for this, as Denver's currently down at halftime in their playoff game against the Patriots, and there's another 30 minutes of football to go, and John Fox almost never loses to the same team twice in one season, but here goes:1 - I have complicated feelings about Tim Tebow.2 - I sincerely want the Broncos to lose tonight, partly because of those

They are not unicorns

2012-01-05T20:23:00.004-05:00

This is just bad logic.Here Rick Santorum is trying out the tired, old, nonsensical argument against marriage equality that if two women can marry, then 47 women can marry and OMG WHAT THEN???It's a classic argumentative fallacy that every pre-law student gets quizzed on two weeks into their first semester. The question is this, but I'm going to pretend that it's this other thing and then answer

Semi-live blogging the Iowa caucuses while I do other things

2012-01-03T20:17:00.004-05:00

I totally forgot the Iowa caucuses were today! Probably because I'm a Democrat who lives in North Carolina, but I still feel guilty. Anyway, I have the news on now. But it's been a solid two days of meetings at work, including lunches, and a holiday weekend before that, so I have a ton that I need to catch up on, and I really want to avoid Chris Matthews as much as possible.Right now it's 8:15 (

The "Lost" wannabes

2012-01-01T22:40:00.005-05:00

Let's talk about "Lost."One of my all-time favorite TV shows that for some reason I haven't (yet) had the urge to re-watch since it wrapped up 18 months ago. A critical hit for a network that needed it, whose fans are kind of obsessive, and that the networks have thus far failed to repeat in terms of appeal. This piece from Entertainment Weekly explores what might make the next "Lost" successful,

Well let's just vote for that "golden voice" Ted Williams guy, then

2011-12-30T21:51:00.003-05:00

Let's talk about the Kennedys, just to name a political family with multi-generational wealth.In particular, Robert F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy made anti-poverty centerpieces of their political legacies. RFK was practically obsessed with racial and social justice; as a Senator, he spearheaded an economic development project in Brooklyn, and in a speech as a presidential candidate first introduced

Newts are slithery and disgusting, but that's neither here nor there

2011-12-26T20:09:00.005-05:00

It's been an interesting couple of weeks for those of us who regularly read newspapers and news magazines back in the mid-90s. As Newt Gingrich emerged as the latest favorite GOP candidate who's not Mitt Romney, I found myself wondering just how long it would take the people who apparently were telling pollsters that Newt was their top choice to remember what he was actually like the last time he

A Christmas wish

2011-12-14T23:12:00.003-05:00

A - I hope that I am fortunate enough to have children.B - I hope that I have the sense not to humiliate them on the Internet.Seriously, the things that random Americans would say about my family's home videos...(though I have to say... I totally welcome black beans and a Waffle House hat, if anyone's buying...)

Needles in a haystack? Deport all the hay.

2011-12-14T20:30:00.002-05:00

Earlier today, I posted on my Facebook page a link to a story in today's New York Times about how a number of American citizens have been wrongfully detained by immigration enforcement. Some of them are naturalized citizens, and some are natural-born, native Americans who happen to have non-Anglo Saxon names. The fact that this is happening in America should scare the hell out of anyone who

Cranky thoughts on two TV shows

2011-12-11T23:12:00.004-05:00

I keep writing and rewriting a post about "The Office," and here "Boardwalk Empire" comes and makes my point for me.Ok - I was a late convert to "The Office." (And, before we go on, I mean the show that airs every Thursday night in the country where I live. As far as I'm concerned, clarifying that you "like 'The Office,' but only the U.K. version" is an even bigger "I'm a raging douchebag"

I'm a Christian, and Rick Perry doesn't speak for me

2011-12-08T23:22:00.003-05:00

Oh, my hell, what an ignorant asshat.And I say that not as a Democrat, not as a supporter of LGBT civil rights, but as a devout Christian who's sick and [expletive deleted] tired of bigots like Rick Perry insisting that they speak for my faith, when what they're really doing is hijacking a 2,000-year-old belief system to rationalize their own hatred and inadequacy.Aside from the fact that Perry

Choose logic

2011-12-01T20:38:00.002-05:00

I'm the middle child of five, all girls. The oldest four of us are very close in age, and the youngest is seven years younger than I am. So, our family dynamic was first like that of a basketball team, and then later like that of a basketball team ganging up on a toddler because we were bigger than her. Except that basketball players are adults, and we were children right at that age where each

A funny story... but not really

2011-11-22T23:47:00.003-05:00

About five years ago, I was going through a Mexican cooking phase, and I was feeling kind of cocky about my ability to handle spicy foods. Long story short, I ended up adding way too many habañero chili peppers to my fajita recipe (for the record, ANY number of habañeros is too many). The eating part was actually okay... maybe a little uncomfortable, but I had rice and chips and other stuff to

NBC's going to Britta this one

2011-11-15T21:21:00.004-05:00

This morning, I had to sit in on a meeting about an upcoming community event. Now, there's a reason I don't do event planning, and that's because I suck at event planning. I have zero interest and negligible ability. I could not possibly have less patience with spending an hour debating the appropriate tablecloth. My philosophy is, you plan it and I'll promote it. So, I was not having a good

A Word Nerd Rants

2011-11-12T21:00:00.003-05:00

Coupon: COO-ponAnything else is just wrong. Sorry.This has been a longtime pet peeve of mine. Not just this one word, but common mispronunciation of words in general that I think might be a unique product of regional psychology. I'll explain.Coupon. From the French word "couper," meaning "to cut." It seems so straightforward, and it is in pretty much the entire English-speaking word except for

May no act of ours bring shame

2011-11-10T22:26:00.004-05:00

Today I found myself thinking about an elective I took at a community college about the Holocaust. It was less a history class than a course focusing on the philosophy of evil, for lack of a better term - why seemingly good people do terrible things. We read about the Kitty Genovese case, and the theory that people will be less likely to respond to cries for help if they think others are around

Breaking: JoePa is out

2011-11-09T23:24:00.004-05:00

I still have things I want to say about this - long-winded, hopefully thoughtful things - but for now I just wanted to note that, after Penn State's Joe Paterno announced today that he'd retire at the end of the football season following the indictment of his former assistant Jerry Sandusky for numerous counts of sexual abuse, Penn State's Board of Trustees fired him effective immediately. They

Socratic NASCAR, part II: NASCAR is mad, y'all

2011-11-08T21:34:00.005-05:00

Just because I enjoyed the first part so much...(...and, again, apologies for being so slow. Adjustment to new job is kicking my a**.)But it turns out that NASCAR has given this story a few days' more legs by fining Kyle Busch $50,000 for wrecking Ron Hornaday Jr. last Friday, after parking Busch for the Saturday Nationwide and Sunday Cup races. Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled...but on an

Men behaving badly, and all the other people who have to clean up after them

2011-11-08T20:40:00.007-05:00

When I read yesterday for the first time an opinion commentator writing that Penn State doesn't have many other options other than to ask Joe Paterno to resign, and when I read today that this might actually be in the works, my first reaction was, "Well, this sucks." It's sad that Paterno's decades-long career might end because he may have helped cover up a former colleague's sexual abuse of

Bless your heart, New York Times!

2011-11-02T22:40:00.003-04:00

(First of all, apologies for being so lax in posting lately. I started my new job not quite three weeks ago, and I love that it's so fast-paced... but naturally that leaves me less time for pontificating.)True story: this summer, my family, traveling in a tourist-y area in the Blue Ridge Mountains found ourselves entering a restaurant at the same time as a small party of men. The men visibly

Entitled

2011-10-21T21:02:00.002-04:00

There's a post I've been wanting to write all week, but I just couldn't get it to gel. Sometimes I have no trouble articulating what I think about something, and sometimes I know that if I tried to write about X, all that would come out is a bunch of gibberish. A lot of the time, I just want to keep from writing three identical posts in a row, so I wait until I've figured out some way to unify a

Hank Williams Jr. is mad, y'all

2011-10-10T21:22:00.003-04:00

Can I be on Hank Williams Jr.'s side while completely disagreeing with him?Nutshell: last week while appearing on "Fox & Friends," Williams made some comments that appeared to compare President Obama with Adolf Hitler, saying that Rep. John Boehner shouldn't have played golf with him. ESPN then removed Williams' singing intro from its "Monday Night Football" broadcast. Williams has now responded

The Ides of Zzzzzzzzz…

2011-10-09T21:51:00.000-04:00