As a much needed corrective to Mercury's pessimism, Clay showed us a viable way forward: cut through the bureaucracy like a scalpel through necrotic flesh. Optimistic, perhaps, but also unrealistic: how could he think we could solve all our nation's problems through a series of 48-minute episodes? |
Powell weaves together the art of colloquial schmoozing with the science of getting what you want, using Bush II's tenure as a baseball owner/figurehead as a case study. Being the dumb, affable guy never looked so good, but the fact that this works makes the human condition look ever-so-wretched. |
More a tactician's primer than an academic paper, we were all still enthralled by the smart-bomb's-eye-view of the probable theaters of the coming hydro-apocalypse. We don't mean to be alarmist, but you'd better start hoarding your Evian now. |
Cultural imperialism takes many forms, from Coca Colonialism
to Ramboning, but Galoobachev's idea that the creation and exportation
of plastic toys purposefully primed the world's kids to pick
up cluster bombs is both diabolical and disturbingly on-Target. |
All-Brite and Mad-L brought da funk and brang da crunk but failed to win over dis skeptical Obama-ite. |
We often think of war as the primary driver of technological innovation, but in this three-minute short, Technicolorus argues for economic depression and government stimulus as the more important factors in teching us up a level. The way forward, it seems is through boredom well-funded. So if you want your kids to grow up creative, don't give them an iPad, just ignore them and give them the cash instead. |
Perhaps less surprising than the connection between creepy '80s toys and bully (and Bull-Moose) politics is the depth of our narrative intransigence: it's not that the need to tell BS stories; it's that we need to re-tell them constantly in order for them to stick. And this, perhaps, is what Rush Limbaugh learned from a cuddly plush toy. |
John
Quincy Adams, M.E.: Breaking Bureaucracy to Bring Justice to
the Corpse of America's Fears--Diplomacy in the Age of
War
George
Walker, Texas Ranger: Image-making, Enforcement, and Martial
Art of Gladhanding
George
Herbert Walker Dune: Desert Adventurism, Imperialist Ambitions,
and Technowar--a Guidebook in Sci-Fi
Ronald
McDonald Raygun: the Star Wars Presidency and Cold War Imperialist
Merchandizing, Projecting Peace Through Plastic Toys
William
George Clinton: Painting the White House Black with the "First
Black President" to Actually Care About Black People,
a Retrospective
Franklin
Stove Roosevelt: Populism, the New Deal, and Inventiveness in
American life, an Elegy in Animation
Theodore
Ruxpin Roosevelt: Stand Tall and Carry a Big Story--Repetition,
Language, and the Power of Position