the st. louis rams as a microcosm of the nfl

Yes, a rare sports piece from yours truly. For Deadspin, I wrote an NFL season preview for the St. Louis Rams. Kinda. I mostly used the team as a springboard to talk about what I love (and don't love) about the National Football League. The Deadspin readers were not pleased.

hearting justin timberlake

It's no secret that I'm quite fond of the solo career of Mr. Justin Timberlake. I continue with the kind words in my latest Consumables column. I also ponder Paris Hilton and Spike Lee. (Now there's a combo.)

hendrik hertzberg nails bush again

The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg has so continually criticized the Bush administration's failures in Iraq and elsewhere that it's easy to take his always-fine commentary for granted. But this week's piece on the growing American consensus against the war is one of his very best, as he coldly dissects the litany of recent disappointments ...

The war's sole real gain -- the overthrow of the murderous Saddam Hussein regime -- is mocked by the chaos and suffering that have overwhelmed millions of Iraqis, whose country is again a republic of fear. The concrete losses are horrific: nearly three thousand American and "coalition" troops killed; thousands more maimed; scores of thousands of Iraqi civilians dead; a third of a trillion dollars burned through. So are the less tangible ones: the unprecedented levels of anti-Americanism throughout the Muslim world and Europe; the self-inflicted loss of America's moral prestige; the neglect of real nuclear dangers, in Iran and North Korea, while chimeras were chased in Iraq. The neoconservative project of a friendly, democratic Middle East, with Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace, is worse than a charred ruin -- it is a flaming inferno.

Just about covers it, huh? Of all the insightful points Hertzberg makes, "the self-inflicted loss of America's moral prestige" probably angers me the most -- the idea that we now live in a country that has (in the eyes of the rest of the world) forfeited its reputation for honorable, virtuous behavior is going to be a bitter pill we'll be swallowing for a long time to come, I fear.

snakes on a plane

The wait is over: Snakes on a Plane is finally here. It's no work of art, but for a late-summer B-movie, it has a whole lot of charm.

seeing barry lyndon on the big screen

The Academy is hosting a screening of Stanley Kubrick's underrated Barry Lyndon on Monday, August 21. If you've never seen it -- or only seen it at home -- now's your chance. Even better: Ryan O'Neal might be there, too.

writing pad

I'll be teaching a one-day seminar in Los Angeles on Saturday, October 14 as part of the Writing Pad. The topic? The art of reviewing. It'll be fun, I swear -- and the food should be quite tasty.

please see the house of sand

It's an amazing film. If that doesn't sway you, my latest Consumables column also covers Miami Vice, Scoop, and Band of Horses.

there are worse things than mel gibson...

... like our current president, for instance.