tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37721242012-01-23T23:56:15.086-05:00by Jesse WalkerJessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comBlogger9091100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-12682473406368647802012-01-23T23:46:00.003-05:002012-01-23T23:56:15.093-05:00

YES, I'VE BEEN DOING THIS FOR A DECADE NOW: I've posted my top ten movies of 2001, 1991, 1981, 1971, 1961, 1951, 1941, and 1931. So next we...er...Sorry, but I don't think I've watched 10 films of any quality from 1921, let alone 10 that are good. Of the ones I've seen, my favorite is Buster Keaton's The High Sign, and of the ones I haven't seen, I'm most interested in Fritz Lang's Destiny. And

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-47340916075044163272012-01-22T20:29:00.004-05:002012-01-23T01:04:23.209-05:00

LISTICLES, WE GOT LISTICLES: I've picked my favorite films of 2001, 1991, 1981, 1971, 1961, 1951, and 1941. On to the early Depression years.When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked at 1931, it gave its Best Picture award to Cimarron, a mediocre western that aspires to be an epic. It isn't on my list.1. Bimbo's InitiationDirected by Dave FleischerBetty Boop: Final Secret of the

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-52885549749546845112012-01-17T11:09:00.011-05:002012-01-17T13:01:06.642-05:00

THE DEVIL AND PRESTON STURGES: I've posted my favorite films of 2001, 1991, 1981, 1971, 1961, and 1951. You may have figured out what comes next.When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked at 1941, it gave its Best Picture award to How Green Was My Valley, a cloying "quality" movie from John Ford, who's at his worst when he tries to do something like this. It isn't on my list.1.

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-74730228871057664562012-01-13T12:13:00.007-05:002012-01-13T19:40:31.142-05:00

INTELLECTUAL CARROTS AND CULTURAL DEPRAVITY: I've reeled off my favorite films of 2001, 1991, 1981, 1971, and 1961. Time for another list.When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked at 1951, it gave its Best Picture award to An American in Paris, a musical that I neither dislike nor am especially fond of. Any of these would have been a better choice:1. Ace in the HoleDirected by

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-35612562519448579972012-01-06T15:48:00.008-05:002012-01-06T16:18:46.293-05:00

IN WHICH WE CONTINUE OUR TOUR THROUGH THE BEST MOVIES MADE IN YEARS THAT END WITH A ONE: We've done 2001, 1991, 1981, and 1971. Now for our fifth installment.When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked at 1961, it gave its Best Picture award to West Side Story, a musical whose fine cinematography and score are undermined by an aggravating script. I prefer these:1. YojimboDirected

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-89060323636285041352012-01-02T17:57:00.008-05:002012-01-03T10:46:42.250-05:00

THE YEAR I GREW MY FIRST TOOTH: So far we've gone through the best films of 2001, 1991, and 1981. Care to guess what comes next?When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked at 1971, it gave its Best Picture award to The French Connection, a thriller that I enjoyed but whose exalted reputation has always mystified me. I like these movies better:1. The Last Picture ShowDirected by

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-32204217112074819152011-12-29T22:39:00.001-05:002011-12-29T22:41:56.616-05:00

REAGAN YEAR ONE: I've posted my picks for the top 10 films of 2001 and 1991. Now onward (or is it backward?) to the '80s.When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked at 1981, it gave its Best Picture award to Chariots of Fire, the film that appears in the dictionary next to the phrase "Oscar bait." Here are some better movies:1. Coup de TorchonDirected by Bertrand TavernierWritten

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-48431936382355525662011-12-27T13:47:00.007-05:002011-12-28T21:03:03.281-05:00

DAWN OF THE NINETIES: Last week I listed my favorite films of 2001. Today we'll step back another 10 years.When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked at 1991, it gave its Best Picture award to The Silence of the Lambs, a highbrow slasher flick. I liked that one well enough to add it to my honorable mentions, but it didn't make my top 10:1. The RaptureWritten and directed by

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-205490865295696912011-12-22T15:00:00.011-05:002012-01-02T19:16:48.577-05:00

A TIME ODYSSEY: When other writers trot out their 10 favorite films of the year, it's our tradition here at The Perpetual Three-Dot Column to instead list our top 10 pictures of 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30, 40, and so on. And by "tradition" I mean "practically the only thing I use this old blog for these days."When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked at 2001, it gave its

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-58188855657112234512011-11-25T23:44:00.005-05:002011-11-26T00:29:22.126-05:00

SELF-PROMOTION: If I haven't been publishing much here lately -- at least until that Muppet mega-post went up tonight -- it's not just because of my usual neglect of this blog. I'm on leave from Reason too, to work on a project that has absorbed almost all of my literary energy. I'm writing a book for HarperCollins that is tentatively titled The United States of Paranoia and is tentatively

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-38075793373171837432011-11-25T22:28:00.006-05:002011-11-26T00:23:10.178-05:00

NOT QUITE A MUPPETS REVIEW:1. I'm not sure I even realized a new Muppet picture was about to come out when I bought that DVD of the original Muppet Movie for my older daughter. I just wanted to surprise her with a video that I was pretty sure she'd like, and that I knew I'd enjoy watching with her. And she did like it: We had a great time cuddled up on the couch with the TV on, her laughing at

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-40522378468199951032011-08-08T11:44:00.002-04:002011-08-09T14:47:59.980-04:00

SELF-PROMOTION: My very brief review of Adrian Johns' Death of a Pirate, my much more substantial review of Eli Pariser's The Filter Bubble, and a column about gay marriage. All published in Reason in the last couple of months.

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-15662994765869964372011-08-08T11:40:00.000-04:002011-08-09T14:45:31.626-04:00

MARK O. HATFIELD, RIP: Mark Hatfield, Oregon's Republican governor from 1959 to 1967 and then senator from 1967 to 1997, has died at age 89. In World War II, he had been among the troops who entered Hiroshima after the bomb fell. That scarring experience, along with his deep Christian faith, made Hatfield the most pacifist presence in the Senate in the second half of the 20th century. He opposed

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-39410246167536998382011-07-27T22:55:00.001-04:002011-08-03T14:51:44.462-04:00

WELCOME TO THE WORLD:Lila Rose Walkerdaughter of Jesse Walker and Rona Kobellborn July 27, 2011, 5:45 p.m.Mother & baby are both well, and big sister is very excited. So is Dad!

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-10874201554115971422011-06-12T09:00:00.003-04:002011-06-12T09:07:38.065-04:00

SO I HAVEN'T POSTED HERE IN A COUPLE OF MONTHS...: Articles I've published recently:• "That '80s Show": a review of David Sirota's book Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live in Now—Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Everything. Published in Reason.• "Planet Burma": a reply to Joshua Kurlantzick's recent New Republic piece on "democratic meltdowns." Published in Reason.• "The

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-24640693321809941932011-04-05T19:53:00.002-04:002011-04-05T19:58:07.050-04:00

SO WHAT ELSE IS NEW?: Two recent Reason columns:• "Oh What a Lovely Budget Item" (April 1). On the incompatability of neocon fiscal policy and neocon foreign policy. This was reprinted, in severely abridged form, by the Chicago Sun-Times.• "Resilient Japan" (March 16). On three lessons we can learn from the Japanese quake and tsunami. This was reprinted by ABC (that's the Australian ABC, not the

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-83455485439717796192011-04-05T18:28:00.000-04:002011-04-05T18:29:06.842-04:00

KATIE COURIC, GHOST IN THE MACHINE: As Katie Couric leaves the anchor's chair at CBS, Jack Shafer argues that we've entered the post-anchor world:The explosion of news choices on cable and the Web have made the evening news an anachronism enjoyed mostly by an audience of older and less highly educated viewers, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism. If there is little prestige,

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-60581911141501203502011-02-27T13:53:00.001-05:002011-02-27T13:55:13.480-05:00

SELF-PROMOTION: I've been lax about linking to my Reason stories. Catching up:• "Teaching People Power" is an interview with Gene Sharp, the preeminent scholar of nonviolent conflict.• "People Who Live in the Shade" is an interview with Thaddeus Russell, author of A Renegade History of the United States.• "The Secret Lives of Bees" is a very brief review of Thomas Seeley's book Honeybee Democracy

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-50124053979967488642011-02-27T13:39:00.000-05:002011-02-27T13:40:21.328-05:00

CHURNING AND CHURNING IN THE MEDIA GYRE: When I was 20 or so I got an internship that involved, among other things, churning out press releases for a hospital. I was young enough to be surprised the day I discovered my handiwork, barely altered, run as a news story in the local paper. I felt like I'd unwittingly joined the Illuminati.Traditionally there hasn't been an easy way to tell how much

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-28749962257620246842011-01-25T19:27:00.002-05:002011-01-25T19:29:53.063-05:00

AND CUT: So I've picked the top 10 movies of 2000, 1990, 1980, 1970, 1960, 1950, 1940, and 1930. And...that's it.What -- did you think I was going to carry this on til I'd reeled off the best magic lantern shows of 1780? You have to stop these things somewhere, and 1930 is a perfectly cromulent place to cease. For the record, my favorite film of 1920 is Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-50202672100711112502011-01-24T21:45:00.007-05:002011-01-25T09:38:09.199-05:00

STALINISM, SURREALISM, AND SWING: If you're coming in late, you can click on the links to see lists of my favorite films from 2000, 1990, 1980, 1970, 1960, 1950, and 1940. For 1930, read on.When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1930, it gave its Best Picture award to All Quiet on the Western Front, an adaptation of an antiwar novel by Erich Maria Remarque. The book

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-76296248796342914622011-01-22T21:29:00.001-05:002011-01-22T21:30:32.836-05:00

SELF-PROMOTION: My most recent column for reason.com is about Jared Lee Loughner, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and related topics.Also, my feature from February's print edition of Reason -- an extended remix of my Web column on why the Republicans aren't going to defund NPR -- is now online as well.

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-37559331882082262132011-01-22T18:07:00.005-05:002011-01-22T22:29:52.243-05:00

FORTY FORTY HOME: I've listed my favorite movies of 2000, 1990, 1980, 1970, 1960, and 1950. It shouldn't be difficult to guess what comes next.When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1940, it gave its Best Picture award to Rebecca, a Daphne du Maurier joint. That one is in my top 10 list, but it isn't at the apex:1. The Philadelphia StoryDirected by George CukorWritten

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-64667058507008856902011-01-17T00:29:00.010-05:002011-01-17T10:06:32.488-05:00

MIDWAY THROUGH THE CENTURY: I've picked the most impressive pictures of 2000, 1990, 1980, 1970, and 1960. Onward to the Truman era.When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1950, it gave its Best Picture award to a backstage drama called All About Eve. That one made it to my honorable mentions list, but it didn't break into the top 10:1. RashomonDirected by Akira

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-53506604579994051772011-01-12T13:23:00.000-05:002011-01-15T19:36:21.643-05:00

THE NEW AGE ASSASSIN: ABC has interviewed Zach Osler, a friend of the Tucson shooter Jared Lee Loughner. If you're trying to decipher Loughner's worldview, Osler's comments offer two important clues.First: Osler flatly rejects the theory that the killer was driven by the political rhetoric found on cable news and AM radio. Loughner, he says,did not watch TV. He disliked the news. He didn't

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-77468647291810221892011-01-11T09:59:00.004-05:002011-01-22T22:36:44.193-05:00

A GOOD YEAR FOR HORROR: In the last few posts I've reeled off my favorite movies of 2000, 1990, 1980, and 1970. You can probably guess what comes next.When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1960, it gave its Best Picture award to Billy Wilder's The Apartment. I don't often say this, but the Academy got it exactly right.1. The ApartmentDirected by Billy WilderWritten

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-22027182433917840782011-01-07T09:21:00.011-05:002011-01-07T16:25:13.598-05:00

NO, I DIDN'T SEE THESE AS THEY CAME OUT: So far I've listed my favorite films of 2000, 1990, and 1980. Next up: the year I was born.When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1970, it gave its Best Picture award to Patton, a military biopic co-written by a kid named Francis Ford Coppola, who would go on to make The Godfather, and directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, who had

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-11915763538474458302011-01-01T11:22:00.001-05:002011-01-01T11:22:45.557-05:00

SELF-PROMOTION: My final Reason column of the year was about John Cage, Autotune the News, and related subjects. I also contributed to a year-end roundup of the best books of 2010. And a little squib I wrote for the January issue of the magazine, about the latest TV Carnage mixtape, is now online as well.

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-12897518675221257442011-01-01T10:15:00.009-05:002011-01-02T10:01:12.961-05:00

HEAVEN'S ESTATE: Another post in which I reel off my favorite films from a year that ends with a zero. So far we've covered 2000 and 1990; onward to the '80s.When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1980, it gave its Best Picture award to Ordinary People, an after-school special with high production values. It isn't on my list. The most historically significant movie of

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-48663253416381162902010-12-29T16:13:00.004-05:002010-12-29T17:05:43.393-05:00

NINE OF OUR LUFTBALLONS ARE MISSING: On Monday I listed my favorite films of a decade ago. Today we'll go another 10 years into the past.When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1990, it gave its Best Picture award to Dances with Wolves, the middlebrow message-movie that definitively established that a revisionist western could be boring. I prefer these:1. Miller's

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-49162098885217498352010-12-27T14:43:00.005-05:002010-12-27T15:27:37.786-05:00

THE FUTURE, CONAN?: When other media outlets list their top 10 movies of the year, the tradition here at The Perpetual Three-Dot Column is to list my favorite films of 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, and so on. This time we begin with the year 2000.When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 2000, it gave its Best Picture award to a sporadically watchable

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-46997865889234807092010-12-18T17:13:00.005-05:002010-12-18T17:28:25.621-05:00

CALLING OFF THE EXECUTION: Remember when I joined Facebook and wrote, "If I follow this up by starting a Twitter feed, please kill me"? I'd better withdraw that fatwa, because I gave in last month and started tweeting. You can follow me @notjessewalker.As long as we're catching up, I should link to the reason.com columns I've written since I last posted here. In reverse order:• "Our Leaky World"

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-84359604052171578182010-10-25T11:29:00.001-04:002010-10-28T10:35:15.008-04:00

"THAT SHOW BY THOSE HIPSTER KNOW-IT-ALLS WHO TALK ABOUT HOW FASCINATING ORDINARY PEOPLE ARE": Around the same time Republican leaders started staging their We're Going To Defund NPR show, The New York Review of Books published a lengthy appreciation of public radio by Bill McKibben. There's a good deal to disagree with in the piece, particularly in the introduction, which praises some of the

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-60605032864307960092010-10-22T15:39:00.001-04:002010-10-22T15:39:20.065-04:00

SELF-PROMOTION: For still more about NPR, read my column today at Reason, where I explain why I don't expect the Republicans to follow through and defund the network.

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-65565813313767718242010-10-22T09:50:00.001-04:002010-10-22T11:50:43.315-04:00

JUAN WORLD: Can I simultaneously (a) not care for Juan Williams as a commentator in general, (b) believe it was hypocritical and stupid to fire him for what he said, (c) think threatening NPR's funding because you disagree with an editorial decision is creepy, and (d) hold the broader view that NPR shouldn't be getting federal money at all?

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-14386038747918394802010-10-08T17:23:00.003-04:002010-10-08T17:30:29.756-04:00

FACEBOOK, PARANOIA, AND THE MOVIES: This week's Reason column is about the social network, the new movie from Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher. Here's an excerpt:The heavily fictionalized film's opening scenes establish the Web as a place of predation, degradation, and privacy violation. The setting is Harvard, where future Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg gets dumped by his girlfriend. Zuckerberg,

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-71483284060142389882010-09-29T17:56:00.001-04:002010-09-29T17:56:29.279-04:00

SELF-PROMOTION: I recently reviewed Nicholas von Hoffman's book Radical: A Portrait of Saul Alinksy for the online edition of TAC (and, as a result, got into an interesting back-and-forth with Andrew Sullivan about the Tea Party movement). I also have an article in the November Reason -- a revised and hopefully improved version of my Web piece "Forced to Be Free."

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-25710014963726689692010-09-29T15:49:00.000-04:002010-09-29T17:50:27.277-04:00

ARTHUR PENN, RIP: Arthur Penn, who just died at age 88, is best known for directing Bonnie and Clyde, but his most influential work behind the camera might have come seven years earlier. As Dave Kehr reports, Pennadvised Senator John F. Kennedy during his watershed television debates with Richard M. Nixon in 1960 (and directed the broadcast of the third debate). Mr. Penn's instructions to Kennedy

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-40597630276421294572010-09-02T22:53:00.000-04:002010-09-02T22:53:10.782-04:00

SELF-PROMOTION: I have a new article up at Reason Online today -- a review of Angelo Codevilla's book The Rulling Class.

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-30500409548584271802010-09-02T22:46:00.002-04:002010-09-03T21:18:50.953-04:00

THE GREEN GUNMAN: Three comments about the Discovery Channel gunman James Lee:1. Yes, he's an environmentalist. Lee's brand of environmentalism may be quirky -- not many green manifestos contain the words "a game show format contest would be in order" -- but his politics clearly center around the environment. That's a change from the spate of George Metesky types who have carried out most of the

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-75235661798463479852010-08-24T18:28:00.001-04:002010-08-24T18:28:38.748-04:00

SELF-PROMOTION: My review of Steve Craig's book Out of the Dark: A History of Radio and Rural America appears in the new issue of the Journal of American Studies.Also, the October Reason, currently wending its way to subscribers, includes my brief review of Ken MacLeod's novel The Restoration Game. Watch for it on newsstands.

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-39053624936554409652010-08-24T18:22:00.001-04:002010-08-24T18:23:56.712-04:00

BUSH NOSTALGIA WATCH: Every president looks better as soon as he's out of office, if only because we can stop worrying then that he'll be the one who finally blows everything up. But real nostalgia doesn't kick in until later, when even members of the other party start to cast their gaze backward and long wistfully for a man whose face they used to use as a dartboard. It happened with Ronald

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-91889228045029601192010-08-08T13:28:00.004-04:002010-08-08T13:48:54.175-04:00

DEPT. OF BELATED CORRECTIONS (AUGUST 2010 EDITION): My 2001 book Rebels on the Air includes this sentence about the California radio station KFAT:It played a lot of novelty songs -- everything from Utah Phillips' "Moose Turd Pie" to Toots and the Maytalls' reggae rendition of "Take Me Home, Country Roads" to an ancient and obscene-sounding western swing tune called "Here, Pussy, Pussy.""Moose

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-19635411319767016542010-08-03T10:34:00.001-04:002010-08-07T10:37:33.316-04:00

THE PURSUIT OF PERFECTION: My most recent Reason column is about TV and Muslims and beer and slavery and almshouses and Objectivists and stuff like that. Mostly it's about the antebellum reform period. Here's an excerpt.One theme was the rise of perfectionism: the idea that individuals and societies could free themselves from sin. Sometimes, the leftist historian Eric Foner points out, this

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-19752659112405073352010-07-16T23:28:00.003-04:002010-07-17T13:10:53.523-04:00

DEPT. OF BROADCASTING STUDIES: A while back I was circulating a proposal for a book about Rush Limbaugh. It was going to be part political history, part radio history, part fan studies, and all in all a rocking good time. Almost every publisher turned it down, though, because they knew another Limbaugh book was about to come out and they didn't want my effort to be lost in its shadow. (One

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-32673424795105922742010-07-16T23:10:00.000-04:002010-07-17T13:18:06.135-04:00

PARENTING TIP: "The Gambler," recited without music, works as a bedtime story. Especially if you change it a bit so the gambler's a mermaid.

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-23797147561827973282010-07-03T22:53:00.003-04:002010-07-06T08:55:32.511-04:00

SELF-PROMOTION (CATCH-UP EDITION): My most recent Reason column is an attempt to distinguish the health of Hollywood from the health of motion pictures, and the column I wrote before that is about WikiLeaks. Also, a squib I wrote about the book How to Wreck a Nice Beach is now online.

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-75438004093971862362010-07-03T00:13:00.001-04:002010-07-03T00:13:18.140-04:00

THE UNEXPURGATED GANDHI: First they laugh at you, then they ignore you, at some point they might tase you, and eventually you lose.

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-28541188121623002392010-06-11T22:21:00.006-04:002010-06-12T12:29:21.013-04:00

THE ARCHEOLOGY OF LIBERTY: The Mises Institute has posted a ton of old issues of Liberty in pdf form. My writing appeared in Liberty from late '91 through early '97, and I was a staffer there from mid-'93 to the end of '96. So I've got a lot of old articles in that cache.It's a little disquieting to reread them now. It isn't pleasant to revisit a piece I remembered as being pretty good only to

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-80413210630902916892010-05-25T17:17:00.002-04:002010-05-25T21:42:18.027-04:00

SELF-PROMOTION: My most recent column for Reason Online is about Facebook.My Reason review of Rebecca Solnit's A Paradise Built in Hell is now online as well.The July print edition of Reason includes a quick squib I wrote about Dave Tompkins' How to Wreck a Nice Beach. Check a newsstand near you.Finally: Did I really neglect to put up a post bragging that my daughter won Daniel Radosh's New

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-6181501454306988022010-05-25T13:45:00.001-04:002010-05-25T13:45:56.681-04:00

THE LOST FINALE: It should have ended with a rain of frogs.

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-38194233320888367062010-05-07T14:55:00.000-04:002010-05-07T14:56:02.334-04:00

SELF-PROMOTION: My most recent column for Reason Online is about the Hutaree, the militia movement, and the new Brown Scare. I also have two articles in June's print edition of Reason: a brief piece about Jello Biafra and an even briefer review of the new disco history Hot Stuff. Available at better newsstands, and probably at some lousy newsstands too.

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-92089503687230871462010-05-07T14:47:00.003-04:002010-05-11T17:36:27.144-04:00

INSTEAD OF A POST ABOUT EPISTEMIC CLOSURE: If I were ever to join the big epistemic closure debate, the points I'd want to make would be:1. Ideological in-groups have always been able to construct cocoons in which their own favorite sources take precedence over the mainstream media. The Internet may have made these cocoons more visible to outsiders, but it did not create them.2. While the

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-90988713006809378422010-05-06T14:56:00.001-04:002010-05-06T14:56:50.742-04:00

THE SECRET HISTORY OF ANYTHING YOU'D LIKE: The historian Rob MacDougall plays a game:We...tried a new exercise I called "The Paranoid Style," an attempt to simulate historical apophenia--the uncanny way that history has of providing evidence to confirm whatever paranoid historical theory you just set out to prove. The "Paranoid Style" game was suggested by some friends of mine, many of them

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-47805439951292139862010-04-16T21:27:00.001-04:002010-04-16T21:28:39.170-04:00

SELF-PROMOTION: I have an article about the Oath Keepers in the current issue of TAC. I have also posted a late-breaking update to the piece at Hit & Run.

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-83510067494602419522010-04-16T18:56:00.001-04:002010-04-16T18:58:50.798-04:00

THE FIGHTIN' SIDE OF TEA: We've seen two serious surveys of Tea Party opinion recently, one from the Winston Group and one from CBS and The New York Times. They certainly aren't the last word on the subject, and there's still a lot to be learned about a movement whose very identity is up for grabs. But these polls are what we've got, and the comments on the results are rolling in, notably in a

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-36303942488318857972010-03-29T16:00:00.002-04:002010-03-29T16:03:20.533-04:00

WHAT'S HAPPENED SINCE I LAST POSTED HERE: My most recent article for the Reason site is about the real trouble with ACORN, the infamous activist association that is closing its doors as a national organization this week. (My take: Contrary to the standard conservative narrative, the group wasn't Alinskyan enough.) I also did a column about the attempts to corral "lone wolf" violence for various

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-82151268662362246422010-03-09T12:15:00.004-05:002010-03-10T01:58:36.025-05:00

CHRIS ALBERTSON'S SIDE OF THE STORY: I opened Rebels on the Air by remarking that "the more sources you have, the more they contradict one another. After a while, the parts of your book that seem the most solid are the ones you feel least confident about. Somewhere out there, you tell yourself, are all the witnesses to history that you couldn't find, and once your book appears, they'll write to

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-300656024753927552010-03-08T00:35:00.001-05:002010-03-08T23:33:59.352-05:00

OSCAR ROUNDUP 2010: I haven't seen The Hurt Locker, so I'm not sure whether Kathryn Bigelow's success tonight really reflected the merits of her movie or if it was just the Academy's way of apologizing for snubbing Point Break. But there were some clear-cut winners and losers at the Oscars this year, and as we sit here wondering when Beau Bridges will finally take home a golden statuette we

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-87685961854824188012010-03-07T13:09:00.003-05:002010-03-07T13:20:07.752-05:00

RASPBERRY CLICHE: Last night Hollywood held its most rigidly predictable exercise in conventional wisdom: the Golden Raspberry Awards, a.k.a. the Razzies, established to honor the worst films of the year. Sandra Bullock showed up to collect her Worst Actress and Worst Screen Couple prizes for All About Steve, then razzed the crowd for not bothering to watch her movie before voting on it: Bullock

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-13169054378306226812010-03-05T15:30:00.007-05:002010-03-05T22:16:25.802-05:00

OPERATION REVELATION: Here's the intro to a press release from the sheriff of Bossier Parish, Louisiana: Bossier Sheriff Larry Deen has unveiled a new emergency operations plan that will be a continuation of public safety in Bossier Parish should disaster ever strike here at home. The plan, known as Operation Exodus, will provide for self-sufficiency in the event of a manmade or natural disaster

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-32197849329781426942010-02-17T23:47:00.003-05:002010-02-17T23:56:19.333-05:00

SELF-PROMOTION: Last week at Reason I marked the 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release from prison with an interview with Howard Barrell, a former ANC operative who argues that it was nonviolent civil resistance, not armed action, that did apartheid in.Also, my Reason squib about Jens Galschiot's sculpture Survival of the Fattest is now online. The article can also boast of being censored

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-41310528666112766022010-02-17T23:38:00.003-05:002010-02-17T23:42:57.979-05:00

COLIN WARD, RIP: My favorite left-anarchist writer, Colin Ward, has passed away at age 85. Ward was the most practical radical I've ever read: Rather than sketching out utopian blueprints of a society without a state, he searched for empirical examples of everyday people organizing to solve their own problems. Once he started looking, he found that voluntary, non-authoritarian cooperation was

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-56650733779010736182010-02-02T23:53:00.003-05:002010-02-03T00:19:21.905-05:00

SELF-PROMOTION: I had an article in The Wall Street Journal on Saturday, a fairly long piece about populism that ran in the Weekend Journal section.I also had a column on the Reason site last week. It explains why the opposition party's State of the Union response is always lame.Finally, the new print issue of Reason is now on its way to subscribers. I have two very brief pieces in it, one about

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-91728633826825078862010-02-02T23:32:00.009-05:002010-02-03T01:04:06.858-05:00

THE GREAT CRASH: Having toured my favorite films of 1999, 1989, 1979, 1969, 1959, 1949, and 1939, it's time to wrap up the trip with the year that silent movies, like the stock market, took a plunge.When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1929, it gave its Best Picture award to The Broadway Melody, a thoroughly unexceptional film. Then again, there weren't that many

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-2513126768686932552010-01-24T15:46:00.009-05:002010-02-21T15:35:27.395-05:00

THE OVERPRAISED AND THE UNDERPRAISED: I've told you my favorite films of 1999, 1989, 1979, 1969, 1959, and 1949. Now we get to 1939, sometimes described as the greatest year in Hollywood history, though of the dates listed in the last sentence alone I'd rate both '99 and '79 (and maybe '59) above it.When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1939, it gave its Best Picture

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-69348982188093406742010-01-20T23:01:00.001-05:002010-01-20T23:01:37.173-05:00

SELF-PROMOTION: My review of Trucking Country is now online at the Reason website.

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-14398728201058455352010-01-20T22:29:00.009-05:002010-01-21T22:09:24.338-05:00

FORTY-NINERS: Having named my favorite films of 1999, 1989, 1979, 1969, and 1959, we turn our attention to...well, you know.When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1949, it gave its Best Picture award to All the King's Men, a thinly veiled account of the career of Huey Long. It's one of those "serious" Hollywood movies that doesn't live up to its pretentions, but I

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-42541775301634231152010-01-16T21:09:00.003-05:002010-01-16T21:19:02.316-05:00

THE HALF-CENTURY MARK: In the last few weeks I've listed my favorite films of 1999, 1989, 1979, and 1969. Clever readers may have anticipated what comes next.When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1959, it gave its Best Picture award to Ben-Hur, a tedious epic containing exactly one good scene (the chariot race). Here are some better movies:1. The Four Hundred

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-62448723744802108952010-01-07T15:08:00.005-05:002010-01-07T17:11:26.966-05:00

INSERT CHILDISH "69" JOKE HERE: So far I've reeled off my favorite films of 1999, 1989, and 1979. Time now for the year of Altamont, the Manson murders, and the inauguration of Richard Nixon.When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1969, it gave its Best Picture award to Midnight Cowboy. I like that movie well enough, but it always seemed overpraised to me; it didn't

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-3859205875206369772010-01-01T23:49:00.001-05:002010-01-02T00:50:36.449-05:00

SELF-PROMOTION: Two year-end features at the Reason site: the staff picks the best books of 2009, and the staff picks the political highs and lows of the decade.Also, February's print edition of Reason is now on its way to subscribers and newsstands. It includes my review of Shane Hamilton's book Trucking Country.

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-64024569168322336302010-01-01T12:03:00.003-05:002010-01-01T19:01:32.935-05:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR, HAPPY OLD YEAR: I've listed my favorite films of 1999 and 1989. Time now for one of the most impressive years in movie history.When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1979, it gave its Best Picture award to Kramer vs. Kramer. That isn't a bad movie, but it's a tad too earnest for me. I prefer these:1. Being ThereDirected by Hal AshbyWritten by Jerzy

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-87266002887761477242009-12-28T15:04:00.004-05:002009-12-28T15:31:22.314-05:00

A GOOD YEAR FOR RIPPING DOWN WALLS: Last week I listed my favorite films of 1999, a great year for movies. Today I'll list my favorite films of 1989, which was not a great year for movies but still produced enough good films to fill a list.When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1989, it gave its Best Picture award to the plodding and patronizing Driving Miss Daisy.

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-89942374874697968872009-12-24T11:41:00.003-05:002009-12-24T11:53:19.897-05:00

'99 FILM BALLOONS: At the end of December, when other critics announce their top 10 movies of the year, the tradition at The Perpetual Three-Dot Column is to ignore the present and pick the best pictures of 10 years ago, 20 years ago, and so on. This time we get to start with a great year for film, 1999.When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back on 1999, it gave its Best

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-6626835653346029302009-12-17T16:37:00.001-05:002009-12-23T23:22:45.632-05:00

HOLY SPIRITS: The new Utne Reader includes an abridged version of my "Paranoid Center" article. I also have a Web column on the Reason site today, titled "Five Reasons for Optimism" and subtitled "As awful as the times may seem, they also contain seeds of hope." And my review of Alan Petigny's The Permissive Society, published in the January Reason, is now online as well.At one point that last

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-62390311422000136932009-12-06T10:46:00.001-05:002009-12-06T10:48:31.463-05:00

SELF-PROMOTION: I haven't seen a copy yet myself, but the January issue of Reason is supposedly out. It includes my review of Alan Petigny's The Permissive Society.That one isn't online yet, but my most recent Reason Web column is. It's about the Sarah Palin fan culture.

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-91452523916404499552009-12-06T10:21:00.001-05:002009-12-06T10:21:36.561-05:00

ALTAMONT BUSINESS CYCLE THEORY: Altamont never would have happened if the feds hadn't bailed out Woodstock.(cross-posted at Hit & Run)

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-49508615369546018152009-11-13T23:25:00.001-05:002009-11-13T23:27:22.700-05:00

SELF-PROMOTION: My column for Reason last week (yeah, last week; I've been busy) was about the Baby Einstein recall.

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-49502451400559388802009-11-13T23:23:00.002-05:002009-11-14T13:59:11.155-05:00

IDEA FOR A MINISERIES: Extraterrestrials come to Earth promising hope and change. Gradually their sinister plot is revealed: They will take over the planet and run it pretty much the same way it was being run before.

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-10441659440825886262009-10-28T14:47:00.002-04:002009-10-28T23:45:53.511-04:00

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE IS NOT TERRORISM: Just in time for Halloween, the press is telling spooky stories about the Oath Keepers, an organization of current and former soldiers and cops who have sworn to refuse unconstitutional orders. The latest scare piece to cross my screen appeared this week in Alternet under the headline "Right-Wing Extremist Group on Active Military Duty?" The author, Rob Waters

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-81778586430544988982009-10-23T17:04:00.000-04:002009-10-23T17:05:51.125-04:00

SELF-PROMOTION: My feature about Jerry Brown is now online as well.

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-44528235726097582582009-10-23T16:02:00.006-04:002009-11-18T20:35:20.787-05:00

THE PARTS LEFT OUT OF THE SESAME STREET ARTICLE: Before Sesame Street, "educational TV" usually meant awkward efforts to broadcast academic content in a traditional academic manner. Afterwards it meant trying to discern what kids were already learning from television and to reverse-engineer a method of delivering lessons the same way. Most famously, this meant creating commercials for letters,

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-42734565569560222332009-10-02T15:52:00.003-04:002009-10-02T20:44:16.326-04:00

SELF-PROMOTION: I haven't seen it yet, but I'm told the November issue of Reason is out. It includes an article I wrote to mark the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street. And also my brief review of the documentary Pirate Radio USA.Those aren't online yet, but my latest Web column for Reason is. It's headlined "Obama Is No Radical" and subtitled "But maybe we'd be better off if he were."

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-6047938372463734452009-10-02T12:03:00.002-04:002009-10-02T15:44:11.866-04:00

HELP US, WILLIAM SAFIRE! YOU’RE OUR ONLY HOPE!: It's always a struggle to keep your eyes from glazing over when reading Peggy Noonan, but I managed to make it to the end of her new column for The Wall Street Journal. She leads by declaring the late William Safire "one of the great ones, the Elders," and then explains herself:Who are The Elders? They set the standards. They hand down the lore.

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-32909826622544421322009-09-24T23:45:00.001-04:002009-09-24T23:45:46.040-04:00

SELF-PROMOTION: I wrote a profile of Jerry Brown that appears in the November TAC. The story isn't online yet, but it should be wending its way to subscribers and newsstands at this very moment.

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-6018968188654781542009-09-24T23:38:00.003-04:002009-09-25T01:19:02.428-04:00

ON RHETORIC, VIOLENCE, AND MILITIAS: My feature in the October Reason, "The Paranoid Center," has prompted a response from the liberal blogger David Neiwert (whose book The Eliminationists was, in turn, critiqued in my article). He singles out two of my points for criticism, starting with my argument that "Accusing Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly of validating right-wing violence isn't so different

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-21771408813623397152009-09-08T22:26:00.002-04:002009-09-08T22:30:14.008-04:00

LEFT AND RIGHT UNITE: Both CounterPunch and Limbaugh linked to my Reason column today. Does that make me a moderate?

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-20363411681222337392009-09-04T16:59:00.002-04:002009-09-05T05:04:02.525-04:00

SELF-PROMOTION: The October issue of Reason is now out. I have two articles in it: an abridged version of one Web piece (my interview with Scott Rosenberg) and a greatly expanded version of another (my essay on centrist paranoia). To see the new versions of the articles -- and the second one, at least, is substantially improved -- you'll have to visit a magazine stand; neither is online yet.What

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-30774632940318683842009-09-04T16:46:00.001-04:002009-09-04T18:50:19.269-04:00

A DIFFERENT SORT OF HEALTH CARE SYSTEM: Writing in Salon, Aruna Viswanatha describes India's health care system as "an anarchic hodgepodge, with little insurance, little regulation and a range of services offered by hundreds of government-run, trust-run and corporate hospitals." It is by no means a purely free-market approach, but it's much more market-oriented than the American model. Among the

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-88514021627938820622009-08-17T16:00:00.000-04:002009-08-18T09:56:24.771-04:00

SELF-PROMOTION: There's a link to it buried somewhere in the post below, but I thought it deserved a line item of its own: My Reason column last week tried to calm the hysteria over the clashes at the health care "town hall" meetings.

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-19573069129379353152009-08-17T15:46:00.001-04:002009-08-18T09:50:09.382-04:00

FIVE LAWS OF THE CRAZY TREE: The liberal historian Rick Perlstein published an op-ed in the Sunday Washington Post about the roots of "the birthers, the anti-tax tea-partiers, the town hall hecklers." In America, Perlstein argues, "the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy, and...elites exploit the crazy for their own narrow interests."In one way, the article is refreshing: At a

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-45367407921656573432009-08-05T15:50:00.002-04:002009-08-05T15:52:59.652-04:00

BIRTH(ER) ANNOUNCEMENT: My column for Reason last week was about the birther movement and its enemies. To my surprise, so far it's produced only one piece of hate mail. Most of the crazies seem to be venting on the official Reason comment thread instead.In other self-promotional news, the late, lamented No Depression has put the six articles I wrote for it from 1998 to 2007 online. The Jesse

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-20188252436421841382009-07-22T16:18:00.001-04:002009-07-24T14:34:30.518-04:00

WE ARE ALL CANNY HENS NOW: A footnote to my post yesterday about the ideological overtones of children's books: Is there any tale as ambidextrous as "The Little Red Hen"?Conservatives love the story. Ronald Reagan read a radio broadcast based on it in 1976, easily transforming the fairy tale into an economic fable. This excerpt should give you the flavor:At last the time came to bake the bread. "

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-50760030851366190572009-07-21T16:50:00.000-04:002009-07-21T23:20:16.910-04:00

THE GIVING FISH: John Schwenkler has asked his readers to nominate the world's most overrated children's books. He starts the ball rolling with Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree: I guess that this is a pretty common target in these kinds of discussions, but damn is it ever deserved. Tree loves boy. Boy loves tree. Boy grows up. Boy exploits tree. Tree takes it all silently, growing less happy

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-66933131415374483902009-07-18T21:23:00.002-04:002009-07-18T21:25:05.415-04:00

LEAGUE OF KINDLE-BASHERS ALERT: The explanation for the latest Kindle fiasco only drives home what a bad deal the device is. The central issue here isn't whether Amazon had a legitimate reason to delete the books. It isn't even whether it handled the situation well from a customer-relations point of view (though it clearly didn't). It's the fact that it has the power to control what's on your

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-8947361626483304382009-07-18T21:17:00.000-04:002009-07-18T21:18:26.891-04:00

SELF-PROMOTION: My interview with disaster researcher Jeannette Sutton is now online. I also did an interview with Scott Rosenberg, author of a sharp new history of blogging called Say Everything; it went up on the Reason site earlier this week.

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-42883742417129203412009-07-18T00:53:00.000-04:002009-07-18T16:21:21.269-04:00

WALTER CRONKITE, RIP: Walter Cronkite has died at age 92. My parents watched him when I was a boy, so his avuncular-grandpa image was imprinted on me early; to this day, I can't read the phrase "Dow Jones Industrial Average" without hearing it in the old anchor's baritone. I had no idea what the Dow was back then, but it was comforting when Cronkite talked about it. If the country had to have a

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-74694727199713535712009-07-12T14:03:00.002-04:002009-07-12T14:07:15.077-04:00

SELF-PROMOTION: My most recent Reason Online column is about the life and afterlife of Robert S. McNamara.Also, the current print edition of Reason includes my interview with the sociologist Jeannette Sutton about self-organization on social media during natural and technological disasters.

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-16185431114392460132009-07-12T09:00:00.000-04:002009-07-12T14:07:55.697-04:00

PANIC AT THE ANTI-DISCO RALLY: Thirty years ago today, a riot broke out at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Steve Dahl, a rock DJ, had organized a Disco Demolition Night at the stadium, at which he blew up a crate of disco discs. The crowd then...well, let's cut to the video: At the time the riot was widely seen as a moment of rock'n'roll rebellion. Since then, as disco's image has been rehabilitated

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772124.post-90864208449961935412009-06-23T15:09:00.001-04:002009-06-23T15:15:29.373-04:00

WHERE DID I PUT THAT BLOG?: The chief purpose of this site these days is to link to my writing elsewhere, and I've gotten lax about it. A week ago, Reason Online published an article of mine headlined "The Paranoids Are Out to Get Me!" and subtitled "The return of the militia scare." Here's an excerpt:We've heard a lot of warnings about extremist paranoia in the months since Barack Obama became

Jessehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02170325333135933149noreply@blogger.com