Lou Dobbs. Lou Dobbs. Lou Dobbs. Lou Dobbs.

I agree with all of this! I think they’re letting like these big (but excrutiatingly contrived) plot devices — the tunnel, the Mexican kingpin, etc — drive the characters instead of vice versa. Also, assholes like Doug are only funny when they’re in a position of (suburban) power, so that you can laugh at them. As a loser/homeless guy, he’s just not that fun (or sympathetic). And yeah, the goth girls having sex with Shane who looks like he’s nine just doesn’t ring remotely true. (Same with the way he hit the popular kid in the face with a tray — if any kid ever tried that in any school, he’d be strung up from a flagpole in about five seconds.) In short, I’m not buying much of anything in Weeds this season, and I’m not saying it has to reflect reality, but resonate with some kind of truth and insight.

I’m thinking True Blood (wait, is that what it’s called?) is the new Weeds. I liked the first episode! Maybe HBO is back (even though I really hate their pretentious pre-show jingles).

homophile:

People who watch Weeds: that was disturbing, no? First we got to see Andy’s semi-erect pecker, and then that DEA agent got fucked up Hostel style. I was like daaamn, they went there! I mean, the show isn’t exactly “conservative,” but they seemed to be pushing the envelope with that episode.

Anyway, I am really concerned for Nancy’s well-being, and I detest the fucking mayor. She has been in way over her head before, but this shit is serious.

Powers that be: CAN THEY FUCKING GO BACK TO THE OLD TOWN? I don’t care for Andy’s dad, the Mexican bitch is annoying as fuck, Doug was a lot funnier when we didn’t get to see him as often, the old cougar bitch that’s fucking Silas ain’t that cute, and the creepy goth girls are fucking weird. AND I FUCKING MISS HEYLIA AND CONRAD. I don’t like any of these new people. Except for maybe Clinique, but she isn’t exactly new.

Srsly, Wtf Is Going On at The Times?

As encouraging as it is to read about the 40 million people who watched Obama’s speech on Thursday night, along with — at least on Tumblr! — some of the firsthand impressions of those who were there — it is seriously disheartening to see The Times trying to desperately downplay the event.

Check this out, in the same article about the 40-million record:

After an initial burst of coverage on the network morning programs, the images from Thursday night were quickly overwhelmed by conflicting reports about Senator John McCain’s likely running mate that completely took over news coverage on cable.

That sort of repetition from the previous night is ordinarily what presidential campaigns count on to spread the better moments of their nominating conventions to those who did not watch them. But Mr. McCain’s unexpected selection of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska left no room for a look back at the night that had passed, although online the speech had been viewed more than 300,000 times on YouTube by Friday evening.

Overwhelmed? No room for a look back? As if they had no choice in the matter? Like they were required to keep Sarah Palin on the front page for 24 hours and shower her with accolades? Even the title of the above article — “Obama’s Speech Is a TV Hit, with Viewers and Commentators Alike — slyly denigrates what was clearly a more important moment than your average “TV hit.” Ughh, after so many shitty elections, I swore to myself that I’d stop caring, but it’s depressing to see the major newspaper of New York City succumbing to the same conservative (and racist) tendencies that plague the rest of our stupid country. (File under: why I’m glad the MSM is losing revenue and will soon be buried by the blogosphere.)

Times Trend: Why Must Sad Losers Spend $$ on Pets (Don't These Monsters Love Children?)

Umm, I know this may or may not be getting old, but here’s a regular (by which I mean at least two!) column you’ll find in The Times that could be filed under: “What kind of stupid loser would pay $$ to save an animal? Don’t they understand that I love my children more than I love pets?”

Today we have Judith Warner, who in “Dogged by Guilt” writes (this first part, which is total wtf, is quoting some crazy she admires):

“When I was a kid, if your dog was hit by a car and was badly hurt, you’d take him out back and you’d shoot him,” the father, who grew up in rural North Carolina, told me. “You wouldn’t take him to a vet to have him put down – you did it yourself. It was kind of an act of honoring the dog, an act of love.”

It seems to me that pet ownership has become – like so many other aspects of modern “parenthood” – a realm in which the goalposts have been moved to greater and greater lengths of expense and absurdity. I actually count myself lucky that I can’t afford to spend thousands of dollars on my dog’s health care”

Then, in 2005, we had Daphne Merkin’s “Let the Fur Fly” in which she wrote:

At the risk of drawing ire, I would like to suggest that there is something profoundly awry about the way our culture treats pets. To wit: We spend more money annually on pet-related supplies and services (an estimated $35 billion last year) than we do on toys for children.

I know I can’t be the only one to find myself increasingly nostalgic for the days when a pet was a pet and not a handbag-size celebrity pooch named Tinkerbell or Bit Bit.

This is my response. I don’t know why or how I even found either of these dumb articles, since I hate Judith Warner and The Magazine — so there may be more! — but whatev, two is more than enough. Now I’m going to play with the cats and go to bed.

OMG -- Why I hate Adam Nagourney

The current lede on the front page of the NYT.

“John McCain’s choice of running mate was a surprise, and — as designed by Mr. McCain’s advisers — eclipsed the acceptance speech delivered by Barack Obama.”

(Ital. mine)

Really, Adam? Picking a nobody from Alaska who is basically an ugly (in the metaphorical sense, obvs) right-wing Christian conservative with no experience eclipsed a speech that was one of the best in modern history?

Why does The Times hate Obama? The undermining begins.

The New Old Gays

I thought this article was fun, and most of the people complaining about it probably haven’t ever read The Observer. (Context!)…I will say that after my crazy week in the middle of that Nike ad controversy, it makes me realize that there’s also a new breed of twenty-something gay guys (let’s call them the opposite of the New Old Gays) who basically want to “out-straight” their straight peers, which means turning sex and hooking up (and commenting on blogs) into an ultra-competitive “sport” with all sorts of “in-your-face” jargon that you see on Craig’s List, etc and is essentially an extension of the elementary-school playground (scary place). Needless to say, I find the degree of homophobia at work here kind of alarming, and interestingly enougth, I was just reading this passage in a Carson McCullers book (btw, she is now in my top three American novelists of the 20th century) where this Jewish kid is talking about how much he initially admired Hitler and the fascists because to see all the youth together filled him with a sense of belonging, and as an outsider in a small Southern town, that mattered most to him; as he put it later, he was aware of what was happening to the Jews, but he didn’t want to think about it in light of his desire to belong. I think this is very much the same dynamic at work in many gay “scenes,” and while it’s understandable, it’s also kind of frightening; the level of aggression and denial at work can result in some fairly monstrous actions…

doree:

My Observer article this week:

These days, the young gays of Williamsburg and the East Village—the ones who wear pointy shoes and tight cutoff shorts, who studied queer theory and dabbled in heroin at Sarah Lawrence or Bard or Wesleyan, hang out at bars like Metropolitan and Sugarland in Williamsburg or the Phoenix and Eastern Bloc in the East Village, and listen to Chromeo and Girl Talk and Le Tigre—get all the attention. Corner one of these young men, and he will profess ignorance of that other scene of youthful gays, the gays of the Friends of Dorothy variety. As one of the New Gays confidently told me, it is a scene made up exclusively of the old and, quite possibly, fat, adding that the only young men who fraternize with this group are those who cannot, in all likelihood and despite their best efforts, get laid.