Politics
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The United States of Waiting and Worry: Election Week 2020
Deep down, we knew it was going to be like this. We’d been told over and over before the election that with mail-in balloting and the surge in voter turnout this year that definitive results in the most consequential presidential election in generations would most likely not come in on election night. I believe most of us even accepted this warning, on an intellectual level at least if not an emotional one. Because that was the problem, wasn’t it? We just didn’t get how four years of the most destabilizing and destructive President in at least a century; a President who was impeached already for attempted election interference, the most…
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The Pandemic Special and What South Park Means in 2020
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Fargo, Watchmen, and the New Television History of America
The first episode of this new season of Fargo, now airing on FX and Hulu, begins with a history lesson. It’s not the sort of lesson you’d find in a high school history textbook. It concerns the growth and changing leadership of the Kansas City underworld from the very start of the twentieth century up to 1950, when the main body of the show takes place. It shows how the criminal elements of that city were initially under the control of a Jewish crime syndicate until the Irish came to town and made a deal straight out of Feudalism. This deal results, inevitably from the tone of the show, in…
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The Great, and Its Many Reflections on Power
So I’m going to begin this article today with a somewhat embarrassing admission. You know that famous Oscar Wilde quote: “Everything in the world is about sex except for sex. Sex is about power“? While I’d always found that quote funny and useful (acknowledging that it may be something Oscar Wilde never said), I don’t believe I ever fully understood what it was getting at until I was most of the way through binge-watching the first season of Hulu’s The Great this weekend. You see, I’d always thought it was about lust as motivation and the way in which lust can transform and curdle. Or, to put it more directly…
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We Get What We Deserve
Two warnings before we start today. This post is about politics. It is directly about political events that have occurred or will occur, not just me tangentially relating a very enjoyable sitcom–that I do honestly recommend–to my own political ideals. I believe politics is important and influences almost everything in our lives to one degree or another, but I also believe it is rude to just bring up politics out of nowhere without giving a heads-up. So there you go. You’ve been warned. I’m angry. I’m angry as I sit here and write this and I’ve been angry since I woke up this morning. So be aware going in that…
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Superstore; A Love/Hate Affair
Be warned. I’m about to do something a little stupid. I’m going to take a network sitcom very seriously. A few hundred words from now when you go ‘Wow. This dude needs to get outside once in a while.’ just know that I did try to tell you. Superstore started on NBC in November of 2015. While it has never exactly been a ratings smash, it’s always been successful enough to get renewed each season and is currently wrapping up its–very funny–fifth season and has already been scheduled for a sixth. I came into this show fairly late, catching up via Hulu just before the premiere of the fifth season…
