Category: Down & Out in Bumblefuck: The Rural News

For those that don’t know, Allen West is a congressman from Florida. He’s part of the Tea Party, he’s one of the most aggressively partisan members of the House Republicans, he’s one of only a handful of black Republicans in congress, and he’s a former defense contractor/torturer that makes Herman Cain look like a nice…

As much as people love dissecting the candidates themselves for any little thing, I think it’s just as helpful to grade the moderators. First Debate…Moderated By: Jim Lehrer…What Worked: [Crickets]…What Didn’t: A ton. His performance was widely criticized by almost everyone. And you can’t say it’s just “liberal whining” because Obama lost the debate, conservatives…

That mouthful of a title is just an (to quote Mitt Romney) “inelegant” way of saying that noted gay activist Dan Savage dropped by a Barnes and Noble to promote his new book, and also answer some questions from the audience. Many know Dan from his numerous appearances on Real Time with Bill Maher and…

As the Democratic National Convention kicks into a higher gear, the question on everyone’s mind (at least, those that really only follow politics for the sensationalism…which is pretty much every political reporter and blogger on the planet) is “Will there be an ‘Eastwood’ moment?” By that, what they’re really wondering is “Will there be a batshit crazy…

Over the weekend, Egypt’s new Islamist President (I could write his name, but would it matter? We’d all forget it in two seconds and I don’t know that his name is as important as his political ideas which skew ultra-religious and rigid) ousted a few top military leaders from power. This is seen as a…

Yahoo’s new web series “Electric City” is set in some sort of vaguely defined post-apocalyptic city where electricity is a precious and coveted commodity. People are willing to steal for it, a quasi-fascist government will arrest people for overuse of it, and a secret society of “founders” (nefarious old ladies who quilt and plot murders)…

What’s a mega-star to do? Tom Cruise is finding himself in the middle of a very, very bad week. Perhaps the worst he’s had since he shot to mega-fame in Risky Business. I mean, a box office flop (Rock of Ages) that was supposed to show off his range, a divorce from his THIRD wife…

Tonight, I went to a Barnes and Noble mostly to check out new books and see what might be worth reading for next month’s Book of the Month Club pick, and inadvertently stumbled upon a book signing for the autobiography of Good Times’s Jimmy “Jay Jay” Walker, a man mostly known for saying “Dy-no-mitttttte!” but…

Last year was the site’s first year, and that meant I was still getting to know all the rhythms that came in the yearly news cycle. I launched it in early February (the DAY after the Superbowl, a time when men can think for about six months), I enjoyed a wave of events in the…

So here lately we’ve seen more and more cable networks try to get into the business of rural programming, or, if you’re feeling snarky, red state programming. Both The History Channel (which produced H&M…not the clothing brand) and A&E (the new series Longmire’s network) are no strangers to rural programming. Whatever actual “History” the History…

If that title wasn’t straightforward enough, let me confirm that, yes, I did just get back from a recent two week trip to China (specifically, Shanghai and then a shorter time in Hong Kong). The next two weeks of the blog will be a deviation from the articles that usually run as I hope to…

So Earth Day was this past Sunday and it really got me thinking about all of the environmental issues most people ignore on a daily basis (climate crisis, ground soil pollution, and over population to name but a few). But what about the issue that even some environmentalists aren’t that crazy about sermonizing on? You…

Last week brought the news that Keith Olbermann had lost another job. The same man who has been either fired or quit from Sportscenter, CNN, and MSNBC (twice), has now been flat-out canned from Current TV. “What the hell is Current TV?” Some of you might ask. Well, 1. It’s the TV network that Al…