Month: October 2010

Bob Costas: Mannish Boy or Boyish Old Man?

Culture / By

only because he’s pushing 60.  It’s because Robert “Bob” Costas has transformed of late into a cranky old man.  Long known for his baby face and boyish exuberance, Costas has recently been spending his time as host of NBC’s Sunday Night Football devolving into the kind of crotchety old fart who screams at those damn kids to stop break dancing on his lawn.  His unadulterated enthusiasm and thoughtful love for sports is slowly being replaced by self-righteous sanctimony and smarminess, last week’s broadcast being another step toward the aisle where they keep the Depends. First came Costas’ pre-game quip to Cris Collinsworth, a sarcastic joke that Costas should get himself a Twitter account so he can  tell the whole world whenever he’s having a cup of coffee.  Now that right there is a genuine old man joke, and for two reasons.  First, it’s a joke we’ve all heard a hundred times before, and the only people who tell jokes everyone’s heard a hundred times before are old people and small children, both of whom are out of the loop and have just heard the joke for the first time.  Whether it’s a 6 year old telling a knock-knock joke or an old guy telling a Twitter joke, they both think this material is funny and fresh.  No grandpa, I haven’t heard that one before.

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Trick or Treat, Baby

Culture, History / By

Halloween Part II Halloween as well.  Another reason is that my neighborhood is generally considered “safe,” despite the random assortment of lowlifes and hoodlums that back in the `70s we would’ve referred to as “hustlers, pimps, and pushers.”  So part of it is just circumstantial.  But a lot of it is that most of the neighborhoods and suburbs where some of these kids are coming from, be they modest and urban or well-to-do and tree-lined, aren’t pulling it off; the black kids are the obvious munchkin migrants, but there are plenty of white kids visiting too.  In other words, my neighborhood is a magnet for these kids because it’s one of the few places around the area where trick or treating is still a viable and thriving activity.  How many times are you going to watch your kid pound on a door and get no response before you realize this place just ain’t happenin’?

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Little Tax Collectors

Culture, History / By

Halloween Part I think.  But more and more, that’s only what Halloween was.  Why is what I just described a very real thing where I live, but not something that happens in a lot of other places?  Why are children flocking to my neighborhood to trick or treat instead of raiding their own neighbors for sweet treasures?  Why do many children trick or treat by car instead of walking from house to house?  And what does trick or treating (or the lack thereof) say about community (or the lack thereof)? I wouldn’t go so far as to call my Baltimore neighborhood a full-on community.  With a population approaching 20,000, most people here are strangers to each other.  And there is also an obvious lack of binding social institutions that connect people in meaningful ways.

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Tweedle Left and Tweedle Right

Politics / By

considered to be objectionable and hostile.  In a priceless bit of hypocrisy, he accused Gross of being “in attack mode.”  I mean really, this is like Lex Luthor bitching at Superman for being an egomaniac: yeah, sure, I guess, but how can you, of all people, possibly say this with a straight face?  But of course O’Reilly found Gross to be, in his words, chock “full of typical NPR liberal bias.” Just like O’Reilly’s filled to the gills with typical Fox News conservative bias.  Duh.

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Christine O’Donnell and Jimmy McMillan Walk Into A Bar

History, Politics / By

of her flying around town on a witch’s broomstick, or imagining her desperately trying to stave off the perils of masturbation. I mean the recently departed Robert Byrd’s saliva stained grandstanding aside, I really do want all of our senators to have a reasonable familiarity with the Constitution. I don’t think that’s raising the bar of expectation too high. And then there is the new folk hero, born of last night’s NY gubernatorial debate: Jimmy McMillan of The Rent Is Too Damn High Party. The major candidates in that race are the son of former Governor Mario Cuomo (will Americans ever stop voting for famous families, be they Roosevelts, Kennedys, Bushes or Clintons?) and O’Donnell’s fellow Tea Partier, Carl Paladino, who, and I’m not kidding here, left the stage early so he could take a wiz.

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Gardens Recur

Culture / By

Jane relates: Downtown stores are locally owned. Book stores, coffee shops, hubs where folks gather and exchange information. (Starbucks moved into a space downtown last year.  Missoula did not support it and so, at the end of this month, they were forced to close their doors.) The majority of citizens care about keeping the ‘local flavor’ in tact. Why? Because we are family. There is a bike trail system throughout, and a place called “free bikes” if you don’t have one. People who are just moving to Missoula learn very quickly that a bicycle is the preferred form of transportation.  Less dependence on fuel. Less pollution. Less stress. Easy pace. In Missoula people care about quality of life, about creating a place where children learn the

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The Public Professor

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