Ocelopotamus

News, culture, and politics. Not necessarily in that order.

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Entries Tagged as 'Culture'

Daily Kos Diary: Gonzales Doesn’t Recall Resigning

August 27th, 2007 · Comments Off on Daily Kos Diary: Gonzales Doesn’t Recall Resigning · Blogs, Comedy, Culture, News, Politics

Perfect. Just go read it. When you rip off this joke later you can always claim you didn’t recall reading it on Daily Kos first. ****** UPDATE: On a more serious note — on the front page of Daily Kos, Trapper John spells out what needs to not happen next: The Gonzales Justice Department was […]

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Video: Fox’s War Drums, Colbert’s Water Fight, and Stewart on Bush’s Magical History Tour

August 26th, 2007 · 1 Comment · Comedy, Culture, Foreign Policy, History, Journalism, Media, News, Peace, Pets, Politics, TV, Video

A few video clips from the past week: First up, here’s a scary video compiled by documentarian Robert Greenwald showing how Fox “News” is beating the drum for war with Iran … watch them repeatedly engaging in the same kind of propaganda and scaremongering they used during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in […]

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Saturday 8/25: Grigsby Award Ceremony for David Kodeski and Edward Thomas-Herrera

August 24th, 2007 · 3 Comments · Chicago, Culture, Fringe, Neo-Futurists, News, Performance, The Partly Dave Show, Theater

If you’re here in Chicago and looking for something fun to do tomorrow evening, I’ll be participating in an award ceremony and “gentle roast” (in the words of Live Bait Theater) for those stalwarts of the Chicago solo performance scene — and my fellow Pansy Kings — David Kodeski and Edward Thomas-Herrera. The ceremony is […]

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Clip and Trailer for Todd Haynes’ New Dylan Movie, I’m Not There

August 24th, 2007 · 3 Comments · Culture, Film, Music, Video

For those looking forward to Todd Haynes’ new film about Bob Dylan I’m Not There, in which Dylan is played by six different and very diverse actors, here’s a leaked clip from the movie with Cate Blanchett as Dylan and David Cross as Allen Ginsberg. If the whole movie is this much fun we’re in […]

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Roundup: Fantasy History Edition

August 23rd, 2007 · 1 Comment · Apple, Blogs, Books, Business, Climate Change, Comics, Culture, Energy, Food, Foreign Policy, Health, History, LGBT, Macintosh, Media, Nature, News, Peace, Pets, Politics, Racism, Roundup, Science, Tech, TV

Bush has suddenly decided that the Iraq occupation is kinda like Vietnam after all, but of course he’s careful to draw the wrong conclusions from the comparison. The article quotes American University historian Allan Lichtman as saying that Bush’s spin on the situation “is not revisionist history. It is fantasy history.” On a related note, […]

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Uganda Burning: Anti-Gay Bigots Rally to Keep Hatred Alive

August 21st, 2007 · 2 Comments · Culture, Human Rights, Journalism, LGBT, Media, News, Politics, Religion

Anti-gay bigots in Uganda rallied today in support of the country’s draconic anti-gay laws (which punish “sodomy” with life imprisonment), carrying signs saying charming things like “Arrest all homos.” They also howled for the firing of a reporter who dared to write an objective story about the experiences of gay people in Uganda, calling her […]

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Review: Crowded House in Chicago, August 19, 2007, with Liam Finn

August 20th, 2007 · 5 Comments · Culture, Music, New Wave, Online Communities, Reviews, Video

Crowded Freaking House, man. Crowded Freaking House. Last night’s show here in Chicago was everything I wanted it to be, with a few very pleasant surprises along the way. In fact, the only downside to the evening was that it had to take place at the odious and uncomfortable House of Blurgggh (complete with worse […]

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The Oingo Boingo Video Vault: Gong Show, Flaming Bathtub, and an Urgh! Outtake

August 18th, 2007 · 1 Comment · Culture, Film, Music, New Wave, TV, Video

Via Gadget Girl, let us now thrill to this 1976 appearance by Oingo Boingo on The Gong Show, from the early part of their career when they were still called The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo. With bonus Bill Bixby!   (As the notes on the YouTube page point out, you might think that’s […]

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Mr. Blue and Kiwi: Exclusive New Photos!

August 17th, 2007 · 5 Comments · Cats, Kiwi, Mr. Blue, Pets, Photos

Haven’t posted any cat pictures in a while, so… First up, here’s Mr. Blue — who wants you to know that he prefers the way you look upside-down. It does so many good things for you. Really, you should just start walking around on the ceiling and save him the trouble of correcting your appearance. […]

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Olbermann on O’Reilly, Colbert on Huckabee, and Stewart on Kristol

August 17th, 2007 · 2 Comments · Comedy, Culture, Foreign Policy, Journalism, Media, Politics, TV, Video

Keith Olbermann explains why Bill O’Reilly is no less than two of the three worst people in the world. (Hint: It includes defaming someone as being anti-semitic … who was actually attacking anti-semitism!)   I Stomach Huckabee: Colbert on the Iowa straw poll. Oh, and watch for the moment when the Governor threatens to break […]

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Tea-Upon-Ice Now Available in Restaurants

August 15th, 2007 · 6 Comments · Culture, Journal, Restaurants, Tea

It is astonishing sometimes, when you have a truly good idea, how quickly it will be adopted by the rest of the world. For example, you loyal readers of Ocelopotamus will surely remember my “tea-upon-ice” idea from last week. (Idea is too small a word, really. Discovery? Breakthrough? Epiphany?) And I’m sure you all have […]

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Roundup: Skydiving Baby Giraffe Edition

August 15th, 2007 · Comments Off on Roundup: Skydiving Baby Giraffe Edition · Activism, Apple, Books, Chicago, Comics, Culture, Death Penalty, Fantasy, Fiction, Film, Food, Health, Human Rights, Internet, iTunes, Journalism, Lit, Media, Meta, Nature, News, Politics, Roundup, TV, Ursula K. Le Guin

Out, damned spot! Fox News caught red-handed, laundering entries on Wikipedia. Keep on scrubbing, Lady MacFox, but those stains belong to you always. The GOP’s California strategy: winning the 2008 election by undoing California’s winner-take-all electoral system. Once the state goes piecemeal, the Repubs gain at least 20 electoral votes from safe GOP districts. Arianna […]

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Rolling Stone: John Edwards is “the Real Liberal” in the Race

August 13th, 2007 · 4 Comments · Climate Change, Healthcare Crisis, Journalism, Labor, Media, Politics, The Economy, Stupid

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Roundup: Ronald Reagan Memorial Bridge Edition

August 9th, 2007 · 1 Comment · Activism, Apple, Comics, Culture, Human Rights, Infrastructure, Journalism, LGBT, Lit, Macintosh, Media, Nature, News, Poetry, Politics, Religion, Roundup, Science, Tech, Torture

This is brilliant. Peter Smith at the Huffington Post has a proposal for renaming the new I-35W bridge in Minneapolis that will replace the one that collapsed: “For a while there, back when the Republicans held the White House and both houses of Congress, they were naming things after Ronald Reagan everywhere. Airports. Aircraft carriers. […]

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