Recent Posts
Outside The Beltway | OTB
Return To Blog Listing
Analysis of U.S. politics, world affairs, and public policy from an educated, thoughtful perspective
Recent Posts Tagged With 'popular culture'
Festivus Continues Long After ‘Seinfeld’
“Seinfeld,” the “show about nothing,” gave us many memorable scenes that continue as cultural icons long after the show itself has become dated an unwatchable. One that apparently keeps growing is the mock holiday celebration...
Colbert on Colbert
Veteran journalist Jim Warren recounts this weekend’s 50th anniversary celebration at Chicago’s famed Second City comedy troupe. He dutifully claims that “the obvious highlights were Friday and Saturday shows with Martin Short, St...
Just a Day Job
Scott Adams on the brutal reality of “day jobs” for aspiring artists. Of course, has a Berkeley MBA and was working at Pacific Bell when he first started publishing his Dilbert strip, so it’s likely the Dilbert and Wally characters...
Nancy Reagan and Mr. T Christmas Photo
Teresa Kopec says, “This may be the greatest Christmas photo ever.” I don’t know about that, but it’s pretty amusing. Also amusing is that Mr. T (born Laurence Tureaud) seems to have enjoyed something of a career revival, re...
Quote of the Day – Star Wars Edition
“I always admired George. You know, George is a guy that does what he loves. And I do what I love. The difference is what George loves makes hundreds of billions of dollars.” – David Lynch on turning down George Lucas’ offer t...
Comcast Buys NBC to Get USA, Bravo and SyFy
I’m dubious of the Comcast-NBC merger, which NYT describes as a “Deal that Reshapes TV.” Almost immediately, the transaction reshapes the nation’s entertainment industry, giving a cable provider a huge portfolio of new content, ev...
Thought of the Day
Jonathan Last calls this NYT obit for Dennis Cole “the saddest thing you’ll read today.” To think that you can be one minute marrying one of Charlie’s Angels and then a few years later dying alone in Ft. Lauderdale while doing...
100 Best Quotes from The Wire
Someone with a lot of time on his hands has compiled a 10 minute video purporting to be “A selection of the top 100 quotes from The Wire, the greatest TV show ever made.” Not surprisingly, virtually all of them contain NSFW language, with...
DVR Saving TV
Television executives have figured out that people watching their shows via TiVo-delay is a good thing. Against almost every expectation, nearly half of all people watching delayed shows are still slouching on their couches watching messages about mo...
Mathematics of Layla
Bernard Chazelle explains “the technical part” of Eric Clapton’s classic “Layla.” Played here with an assist from Mark Knopfler, for those in need of a reminder. The intro and chorus follow the progression of “Al...
Late Night Sexual Harrassment
Nell Scovell, one of a handful of women who has ever worked as a comedy writer for David Letterman — or any of the late night comic talk shows — contends that an atmosphere of sexual harassment routinely exists on those shows: Without nam...
