Oh god, no!

By Dan Brooks in specious trends, Uncategorized 3 Comments

Of the four promises made on the chalkboard below the window, only one is true—although "party party" is basically just an exhortation.

Cheapshots (and Beer,) arguably the best bar in New York—and all subjects become increasingly arguable the longer you stay in there—has been closed by order of the city for “illegal activities.” According to Allison L Arenson, the attorney prosecuting the case, “The community has severely suffered, and continues to suffer, as a result of the illegal activities…interfering with the health, safety and well being of those who live, work and visit in the surrounding neighborhood.” I don’t want to be unnecessarily negative, here, but there is no way we’re going to win this one. The attorney for the plaintiffs obviously has a made-up name, and chances are Cheapshots will never see trial. It’s just going to wake up in a basement somewhere and see Bernard Kerik with a car battery and three feet of lamp cord and confess to everything.

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Glenn Beck cries, longing for America of old commercials

By Dan Brooks in consumerism, glenn beck, Reactionary Populism 3 Comments

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt_G6Lq9jWQ

Do you remember a simpler time, when America was not so much a postindustrial superpower struggling to compete in a globalized economy as it was a hallway with Mean Joe Greene in it? Or when our national discourse was not so much the difficult process of reconciling changing demographics with a shared tradition as it was a series of decontextualized images from family reunions? Glenn Beck remembers that time, and he wants to know how we can go back to it. “America has never been a perfect place, but we used to be united,” he says solemnly. “If a politician told you right now that he could make that happen again, that you could go back to those simpler times when people were together, you’d do it in a heartbeat, wouldn’t you?” Beck goes on to say that, of course, no politician could do that for us, before spending a few minutes explaining to us how we could go back to that simpler time by following his instructions, which he conveys via an extremely confusing metaphor. Watching Glenn Beck use logic to construct an analogy is like watching a woman hit her kid at the supermarket.

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