Grading the President
As President Obama enters his final days in office, a proper assessment of his tenure requires a variety of measurable, non-political categories: golf, offspring, homebrewing, and more.
Meave Gallagher
Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too!
In the 1840 presidential campaign, William Henry Harrison and John Tyler of the Whig party ran against Democratic party founder and President Martin Van Buren (our first president born a U.S. citizen, and the only one--thus far!--speaking English as a second language). An Ohioan jeweler named Alexander Coffman
Anyone Else but You
First lady of France Carla Bruni and Nouvelle Star 2007 winner Julien Doré sang the Moldy Peaches' "Anyone Else But You," a.k.a. the ultimate love song for the socially awkward. Coming from French Elle's Sexiest Man of 2007 and the world's
Kucinich for the Win
Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) is my favorite congressional representative. He's intelligent and thoughtful, he's vegan, and he doesn't seem to have ever compromised his integrity during all his years in politics. Furthermore, the answers he's always demanding from the Federal government are the
SnagFilms
SnagFilms provides a wonderful service: it is “a web site where you can watch full-length documentary films for free.” The site hosts big famous docs, like Super Size Me, and lesser-knowns like Fighting Goliath: Texas Coal Wars. Personally, I go for uglier histories like Girl 27 and the Medici trilogy
Mexican Breakfast
About a year ago, a clip of Gwen Verdon, star of stage and screen, dancing Bob Fosse’s three-and-a-half-minute “Mexican Breakfast” routine to the tune of Unk’s “Walk It Out” appeared on YouTube. Today that clip has been viewed nearly one million times, and inspired a number of imitators.
Target: Women
Do you watch Current.com’s media-mocking show, Infomania? You could call it The Daily Show’s younger sibling: The humor is goofier, the tone is lighter, and the subjects are less serious—really, a nice complement to the relentless laughing-at-horrible-news from Jon Stewart. The best part of the half-hour
Video Digest: June 27, 2008
June is the gayest time of the year, thanks to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (L.G.B.T.) pride celebrations happening throughout the month. This June is extra-special because same-sex marriage was just legalized in California; just last night as I was standing on Castro Street, a car stopped
Video Digest: June 13, 2008
When the need arises to indulge in the felicity of unbounded domesticity, not everyone is up to the task. Some of us weren’t raised by kings and/or queens of their castles; others were, but perhaps failed to learn such skills as home horticulture and grilling the perfect tomato.
Video Digest: June 6, 2008
Identity theft has become a crime epidemic—so how is it that 10 years ago, the phrase had yet to be coined? The internet and the rise of online banking are why: an easily exploitable, easily anonymizable window into the lives, and particularly the banking habits, of others. Especially timely
Video Digest: May 30, 2008
The economic outlook’s been pretty bleak this year, what with the tanking housing market and the mess it made on Wall Street, and ordinary Americans are losing their jobs. Worse, even extraordinary Americans are being forced out on the street, with not so much as a cardboard box to
Video Digest: May 23, 2008
Perhaps inspired by TMN’s Matthew Baldwin’sSesame Street-themed muxtape, or the birth of my boyfriend’s nephew, I’ve been thinking a lot about kids. Babies specifically, though still in that “maybe I’d rather adopt a puppy” sort of way; my maternal instincts remain sufficiently vague for the
Video Digest: May 16, 2008
When I was a crazy teenager, my mom read my journals to try to find out “what was really going on” (just like Rufus Humphrey did to Jenny on Gossip Girl). When my parents thought my brother was a teenage pothead, they searched his room, too (just like Lily van
Video Digest: May 9, 2008
I hear April was a good month for viral video. Having spent the majority of it in New Zealand, I missed all the good stuff, or so it seems. This week, a roundup of the more popular videos of the past few weeks. Superstar Erykah Badu gives some (unsolicited?) advice
Video Digest: April 11, 2008
Well, hello! And welcome to the world of Ms. Brenda Dickson. You may know her from her tenure on The Young and the Restless, where she played Jill Foster Abbott from the program’s inception in 1973 to 1980, then reprised the role from 1983 to 1987, when she outshone
Video Digest: April 4, 2008
This year’s Olympic Games are scheduled to be held in Beijing, in the People’s Republic of China. Hello, controversy! The Chinese government, with its significant involvement in the Darfur crisis, its noted history of free speech and human rights violations, its oppression of the Tibetan government, and its
Video Digest: March 28, 2008
My goodness, but we’ve had some interesting political scandals this year. Juicy ones, too, with extramarital sex and misuse of public funds. Now, when I think about sex scandals, I assume the politician is a national one, a U.S. representative or senator, certainly presidents or perhaps a governor.
Video Digest: March 21, 2008
CNN doesn’t like to give up its news crawler—you can’t escape it by watching videos on its web site. That’s how I learned in “a recent poll,” some very high percentage of “polled Americans” believe “the economy is in a recession.” It’s a national mantra
Video Digest: March 7, 2008
Since today marks the first round of the 2008 Tournament of Books, we figured we’d have a literary discussion about movies. All us hardcore readers know the book is always better. It’s an unquestionable fact. Except, of course, when the movie reinterprets the book so well that a
Video Digest: February 29, 2008
I would like to dedicate this digest to a colleague, whose fascination with Cuba began with his “first sight of Fidel Castro and his bearded cohort during the early and triumphant moments of the Cuban revolution.” I think I understand now. El Comandante en Jefe has been in power since
Video Digest: February 15, 2008
The Writers Guild of America strike is over! Hooray! I’m looking forward to an as-yet-unspecified day in April when Gossip Girl will return to the iTunes store and my TV-watching schedule returns to normal. Throughout January and the first part of February, I heard that there were some weird
Video Digest: February 8, 2008
We had a lovely Super Tuesday in San Francisco, thank you. I agonized over my choice of presidential candidate for days, but ultimately I’m happy with my decision. That immediate post-voting relief was just what I needed to forget the stress from the media saturation insanity of Tuesday morning.
Video Digest: February 1, 2008
President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia invited Alex James, the bassist for Blur, to learn about the troubles in Colombia caused by the cocaine business; the president was inspired by James’s speculation in his autobiography that he’d spent “around a million pounds” on champagne and cocaine during his time
Video Digest: January 25, 2008
Fellow citizens, January’s staggering to an end, and you know what that means: it’s time for the State of the Union! This year our 43rd president will deliver his final State of the Union Address, and o how I am looking forward to it. To optimize your enjoyment
Video Digest: January 18, 2008
Lately, it’s become serious punishment to follow presidential politics in the U.S. Why? Misogyny. Hillary Clinton’s big, bold run for president, and her nerve to be successful at it, has made it OK for jerks of all stripes to unleash their latent woman-hating. Allow me to indulge
Video Digest: January 11, 2008
Only 11 days into it and I’m already tired of the presidential hopefuls. Maybe it felt different living in Iowa or New Hampshire, being wooed by each candidate personally, correcting the hordes of reporters who kept calling you a voter—“I’m going to caucus right now, yes.” Sounds
Video Digest: December 7, 2007
Q. If a candidate appears on stage, but never gets any face time, is he still running for president? A. Apparently so. There are eight Democratic and eight Republican candidates vying for their respective parties’ nominations—not that the casual observer would know it. I threw a small fit the
Video Digest: November 30, 2007
I managed to watch this week’s CNN-YouTube Republican debates and I don’t want to be a jerk, but HDTV was not kind to the candidates. Fred Thompson is all crags and jowls, Giuliani’s already enormous choppers tripled in size, and it turns out Mitt Romney’s hairstyle
Video Digest: November 16, 2007
Last weekend, during an Ibero-American conference, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez called former Spanish Prime Minister José Maria Aznar a fascist. Why? It wasn’t quite clear. Current Spanish PM José Zapatero did his dignified best to defend his compatriot, and boy did Chávez give him a bad time—heckling and
Video Digest: October 26, 2007
My best Halloween costume was in grade school. I must have been eight or nine, and my dad helped me turn a cardboard box into a television set. With aluminum-foil rabbit-ear antennae on a headband and a pillowcase for candy, I was good to go. Halloween in these suburban United
Video Digest: October 12, 2007
Hey, climbing. Another thing that paralyzes me with fear. My boyfriend has been climbing at a gym for a while now, and he loves it, so because I love him, I’ve tried it, but it didn’t take. It’s the looking-down that always ruins it; you’re close
Video Digest: September 21, 2007
Coming home from work the other day, I saw a couple on a bicycle, speeding down 24th Street. Not the steepest of hills, but 24th heading out of Noe Valley towards the Mission is a street pedestrians try to avoid. These two looked fearless. The teenage girl was sitting on
Video Digest: August 31, 2007
When Miss South Carolina expressed her concerns about American teens’ lack of geographical knowledge, and the Iraq, I’d like to know exactly how many people were truly surprised. Yes, her answer was shockingly hilarious, but who expects beauty pageant contestants to be eloquent? Not that I hold it against
Video Digest: August 17, 2007
I don’t know that I ever want to write a book, but I certainly wouldn’t mind going on a book tour. The work’s already done, now you get to go to city after city to be lauded for being a genius. Sure I’m romanticizing it; nonetheless,
Video Digest: August 3, 2007
&tI work in an office building. My “office” is a cube in the center of the room, affording me little privacy and no view. Some of my coworkers are truly strange people. We all get frustrated by incomprehensible corporate policies that seem only designed to punish us. Just like
Video Digest: July 27, 2007
When my editor asked me to write about Ms. Alexyss K. Tylor for this week’s Video Digest, my prudish side was shocked. Does he know what she talks about, I wondered? Does he know about her vocabulary? My grandparents read this! The woman does have some captivating video clips
Video Digest: July 20, 2007
Like many of you, I’m a Nova kid. I remember sitting in the classroom, blinds closed against the Friday afternoon sun, staring transfixed at volcanoes exploding, crocodiles jumping for monkeys, a tiny unmanned submarine traveling the unexplored depths of the Marianas Trench. To this day, hearing Richard Attenborough’s
Video Digest: May 25, 2007
Living in San Francisco means constant reminders that the Big One could come at any time. This year marked the 101st anniversary of the Great Quake, when a 7.8 exploded along the San Andreas Fault, leveling the city and igniting a massive fire when the shaking stopped. Many of
Video Digest: May 18, 2007
With the endless malapropisms, spoonerisms, and eggcorns spilling out of the mouth of our president, we’ve been spoiled for political humor. Back when I was a wee girl, it wasn’t so easy. Yes, Michael Dukakis rode on a tank, and George Bush, Sr., choked on broccoli, vomited on