Which candidate puts forth the best solution to New Hampshire’s heroin problem? In fact, which candidate even said any solution to the problem? And is there really a solution to America’s drug problem outside of the (proven) failure of The War on Drugs?… For more listen to episode 7 of “A Year Long Conversation” that’ll be posted in…
Category: Down & Out in Bumblefuck: The Rural News
“League of Denial” Will Change the Way You Think About Football
Last Tuesday, PBS aired a documentary called “Frontline: League of Denial” that covered the overwhelming evidence that NFL players are at a far greater risk for dementia and various other neurological disorders. It also covered the NFL’s attempts to deny this link and hide the data at every turn. Simply put: see it. Even if you…
Announcing the Start of Breaking Bad Week
Expect to see at least one article a day on Breaking Bad between now and this Sunday’s final episode. I can guarantee that no matter how the series chooses to close, it’ll be better than last night’s sorry “Dexter” finale.
Ariel Castro is Dead, but It’s Not a Suicide
For those that don’t know——or wish they didn’t——Ariel Castro is the Ohio man who held three young girls hostage for the better part of a decade until one of them broke free and called the cops. I’m the biggest advocate of “innocent until proven guilty” you’re likely to meet, but there is no question of…
HBO’S Summer Docs: Americans in Bed, Gasland II, Love Marilyn, and Gideon’s Army
Another Summer, another series from HBO to make Mondays go by a little faster. I can’t say this is my favorite collection of docs, as most of them have been only so-so, but it’s nice to know that HBO maintains their commitment to this series. Americans in Bed…Last night’s addition to the list has…
Down and Out in Bumblefuck: Mark Sanford is Back…For Better or Worse
Mark Sanford is back. That’s both the good news and the bad news. South Carolina’s disgraced former Governor just won a congressional seat against no less than Stephen Colbert’s sister. [Sometimes truth is not only stranger than fiction but better than it.] Elizabeth Colbert Busch had the misfortune of running as a Democrat in a…
Will Mississippi Become the Only State to Have No Abortion Clinics?
Last week was the 40th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that finally made abortions legal in this country, regulating an industry that was killing thousands of women every year in illegal, unsafe back alley abortions. Well…you would think this matter would have been settled by the fact that FORTY years…
Down & Out in Bumblefuck: Alabama Wins the National Championship in a Blow Out…Again…
Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled that the University of Alabama, a.k.a. The Crimson Tide, a.k.a. The House that Bear Bryant built has won another national championship. Well, maybe not thrilled since it’s hard to get too invested one way or the other, but if anyone is going to win I’m glad it’s a team from Alabama….
How Long Can Richard Engel Keep Cheating Death?
For those that don’t know, Richard Engle is the chief correspondent for NBC News. He has also been kidnapped roughly…a thousand times. No, I’m not sure about the exact number of times he’s been tied up and thrown in the back of a truck, but it’s happened to him a couple times over his decade…
What if Hugo Chavez Dies?
As I’m sure you know—–or, if you’ve watched any news or been to a news site in the last year—–Hugo Chavez is ailing. He has seemingly serious cancer (we don’t know the exact type and he won’t say how serious it is, nor would he be honest about it if it were terminal), and, in…
HBO’s “Treme” Does the Impossible: It Makes New Orleans Seem Boring
By now, you either love/hate/or have never heard of HBO’s Treme, David Simon’s ode to post-Katrina New Orleans the way The Wire was his love-song to Baltimore. People that love the show are probably tired of defending it, and people that have never heard of it would probably hate it. I started off thinking the…
Like Tonight’s 60 Minutes Story on North Korean Political Prisoners? Read The Orphan Master’s Son
Tonight’s episode of 60 Minutes (hands down the best news magazine on television and arguably the best journalism on broadcast TV) featured a harrowing story of survival for a North Korean political prisoner. He was born, raised, and would have died in Camp 14 (a prison camp that could have more than 15,000 prisoners in…
Grading the Twilight Films from Worst to…Least Worst
Now that the Twilight saga is officially over, the inevitable question surfaces of “What film is the best? And which one is the worst?” [And the word “best” is used as a loose translation of “which one won’t have me on suicide watch after thirty minutes?”] This is all largely a matter of personal taste,…