Bookworm Beat 8/10/24: The Harris-Walz dance of doom meme edition
If the Harris-Walz ticket wins, our constitutional experiment is over. But for now, we can still laugh and think about clever memes.
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Tag: Olympics
Bookworm Beat 8/2/24: An Olympian Kamala meme edition
Obviously, the dominant memes here are about Kamala and the Olympics, but the world is in turmoil, so there’s a lot more.
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The 2021.07.25 Bookworm Room video podcast is up
Here it is: I’ve finished another Bookworm video podcast in which I hold forth about political and social issues. As before, there’s a video (and I’m getting a little better at making these videos), as well as the purely audio podcast for those who prefer listening. Once again, I give
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Bookworm Beat 2/11/18 — the Olympics illustrated edition and open thread
It’s been a while since my last illustrated edition, but with the Olympics in play for a few days, the memes are starting to emerge. I no longer watch the Olympics. It was fun back in the days of Cold War tension and carefully curated, and quite entertaining, three-hour stories
Continue readingThe Sochi Olympics are boring for myriad reasons
While I’m usually not a fan of news shows that sell neatly packaged stories (which is why I prefer the open format of talk radio to the closed format of NPR), there is one quadrennial event that I think benefits from the package approach, and that’s the Olympics. Back in
Continue readingJennifer Rubin on a roll
I just love Jennifer Rubin in the morning. Let me just cherry-pick some paragraphs from her morning writing. On Obama’s governing style: James Capretta notices two developments in the health-care debate. First, the president is telling us to shut up again. (”President Obama said today that the debate on health
Continue readingConservative cartoonists double-down on Obama, the Olympics and Afghanistan
If only I could draw, I try to draw this type of political cartoon.
Continue readingJust a thought about Mr. and Mrs. Obama’s push for the Olympics
I think the world has sized Obama up and concluded that he’s weak, very weak. The Olympics are a good example of this. One theory has it that Chicago is in, and that the price for that is Obama’s appearance before the Olympic Committee. In other words, Obama got bossed
Continue readingThe Chicago Olympics *UPDATED*
There’s a certain inevitability to the fact that a President who continuously surrounds himself by Grecian columns, and who takes in stride the fact that his followers attibute to him God-like powers, would want to be closely associated with the Olympics. You and I think sports. He thinks of his
Continue readingQuick picks for Monday
I’m still happil figuring out all the bells and whistles on my new iPhone, so I’ll start off this Monday with a few quick picks: No wonder Putin still dreams of the old Empire: it turns out that, if the Soviet Union still existed, it would have left all the
Continue readingPotemkin villages in China
Catherine the Great’s beloved Grigori Potemkin used to be her advance man as she toured Russia. He become famous in history for building entirely false villages in the recently conquered Crimea to elevate the status of her new conquest: Potemkin villages were purportedly fake settlements erected at the direction of
Continue readingThe real medal counts at the Olympics
There are basically two types of events at the Olympics: those that are timed and those that are judged. The problem with the latter events, of course, is that they are subject to human fallability, national loyalty, grudges, and out-and-out dishonesty. I was therefore quite interested when my sister sent
Continue readingThe pain behind the perfection
As you may recall, I was both impressed and dismayed by the opening ceremonies for the Beijing Olympics. I’ll quote the point I made that comes back again in this post: They were gorgeous. They also reminded me very strongly of the public spectacles that socialist countries have always loved:
Continue readingMichael Phelps
While I’m processing news, I just had to take a minute to discuss Michael Phelps — or, more accurately, Michael Phelps and how I’m watching the Olympics. I first tuned into the Olympics in 1972, when I was 11. In those days, and for many Olympics thereafter, the Olympics was
Continue readingAh, the joys of a new computer — plus some Olympics talkl
I got my filing finished today, which ate up the morning, but I have a little — a very little — time now to doodle around before I have 15 kids swarm my backyard for a party. The problem is that, as always, one seems to lose as much as
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