Hey, we Americans love our TV, don’t we? Sure we do! And why not? Because TV these days is great! Great, great, great! Well, some TV is, or was, pretty great, like Sex and the City and Monk, though I guess they weren’t really great great—not, you know, Don Giovanni great—but, still, great enough.1 I’ve…
Author: Alan Vanneman
Lorne Michaels is funny!
For the past 40 years, Lorne Michaels has been a veritable King of Komedy, helping American TV to grow up with the more than legendary first four seasons of Saturday Night Live back in the seventies and then returning to helm the show from the mid-eighties to the present. But in all that time, I’ve…
Hey, Alan Vanneman! The U.S. had TWO debates on foreign policy, while you weren’t listening!
Well, indeed we did. I recently complained, rather at length, at the failure of the U.S. political system to generate a meaningful discussion of U.S. foreign policy, noting that, for the past several decades, we’ve been allowed to choose between “idealistic” hawks like Hillary Clinton and, well, shotgun-wielding freaks. But just before the holidays, both…
New Pentagon Strategy: Don’t fight real wars, prepare for imaginary ones!
As I’ve said before, if you want to know what official Washington is thinking, read Wash Post columnist David Ignatius. In his latest and greatest, David fills us in on what the Pentagon is thinking. The good news is, the Pentagon wants to stay out of the Middle East: “This generation of military leaders has…
John McAfee, a libertarian, not a military historian
Over at “Reason” magazine, Brian Doherty has the word (a long word) on the decision of software tycoon John McAfee to seek nomination for president on the Libertarian Party ticket in 2016. McAfee, who hasn’t been seen running armed and naked for a couple of years, had this to say, among other things: “I’m 70…
That perfidious Mr. Putin! Oh, wait, we’re doing it too!
The Washington Post, which seems to have it knickers permanently in a knot these days, is up in arms over a nasty little device the Russians have cooked up, an underwater nuclear drone, which might be used to do the following: “Russia appears to be creating a tactical nuclear weapon that could be slipped into…
Han versus Hoppy—Who was cooler?
I recently alluded to the fact that Hopalong Cassidy played a larger role in shaping my psyche than Han Solo. Well, that’s chronology, not coolness. Hoppy had Topper, a beautiful white horse that could do everything but sing, while Han had the Millennium Falcon. I’d call that a draw. Han had a Wookie, Chewbacca, for…
Cognitive Dissonance at the Washington Post
Last week, the Washington Post bitterly, and correctly, chastised the entire flock of Republican presidential candidates for their conduct at their most recent debate for remaining very largely mute while Donald Trump went on his now-standard war dance against folks who ain’t like us, and the Constitution, not to mention simple common human decency, be…
Too Old for Star Wars? You’re entitled.
I was in my early thirties when the original Star Wars was released. I thought it was a lot of fun, with a couple of major caveats. First, I thought R2D2 was waaay too derivative of Herbie the Love Bug. A garbage can that farts! Funny! And I thought I would have enjoyed the shoot…
Casual Christmas
I’ll be posting over the holidays, but not necessarily every day, unless I’m feeling exceptionally splenetic. To warm you, and myself, up, I’m posting “Hard Rock, Coco, and Joe,” a 1951 video that I watched as a kid. I’ve learned from the YouTube posting that this was developed by the “Garfield Goose” TV show in…