Right on. The podcast I've never found interesting, but then, people just riffing on life off the top of their heads is rarely compelling to me. Google up 'Steve Jobs takedown' and 'helicopter story' and if those two bits don't cripple you, you are immune to Burr and can move on with total confidence that you gave him…

What's your Burr beef? I'm curious. I'm sure his combative take on identity politics is a non-starter for many, but I don't want to presume.

I guess that's the problem with ultra-broad 'They Out There Sayin' statements.

POINT: Chapelle's work is deeply, authentically black, revealing much about the experience.
CONCLUSION: white people should not openly engage it.

Which one? Wilson's? FDR's? Yes and yes. Look, dude, I'm very willing to debate specifics, but you better bring em. Just because I staunchly advocate for fair exchange of ideas doesn't mean I think the current regime has many.

I think you'd have done better with some calibration. I too defend the worth of Allen's observation that Hollywood can be self-righteous, but that's very different than calling it a cesspool. They're throwing too much brave, progressive, compassionate work out to generalize so clumsily and then expect anything besides…

Maybe if a) he had just said that the Left, even if only to a lesser degree than the typical Right, is also guilty of shutting dialogue down, and b) he and other conservatives bothered articulating which parts of conservatism they stand for and which, in the current regime, they *explicitly reject*, it would be more…

Her? I meant Bruce. Are we dinging Seventh Son for being ENTIRELY MAIDEN!?

That's fair; I found your tone sideways and needlessly obnoxious, but I shouldn't have flipped you the bird like that. My bad.

Meanwhile, I'd like to buy you a beer. I don't share your pessimism—yet—but I do share your frustration, and I'm going to be chuckling about the useful idiots mixer all day.

Absolutely. I truck in no equivalency, false or otherwise, as I feel no doubt at all that the stock GOP culture is guilty of far worse sins than the left. However. Just as I feel it's incumbent upon police officers, when faced with potential threats, to embody a more noble, restraint-based,…

All the 'Guilty by reason of Republican' shit needs to go. Current American conservatism is a weird, loose collective of a number of different groups currently allied for advantage, but often bound by just a single issue in common. Treating it like a monolith, and accusing everyone remotely allied to it of every crime…

Eat a dick. I'm not claiming a burden, I'm averring that journalism deserves better, even op-ed pieces. Four paragraphs of character attack and snide dismissal of the man's simple point—that in Hollywood, conservatives are often dismissed with open hostility and without engagement—have plenty of room to furnish me…

With you.

Dude, I am with you. But I beg you to take heart and resist cynicism. (I'm not name-calling there, as I don't view the word as inherently pejorative; I think you'd agree your stance is cynical in the sense of an intentional worldview.) I lament that mostly what we've used the awesome opportunity of the internet for is…

I kinda want to stab myself in the heart and be pecked by a murder of crows. Time to bust out the long boxes and take a day at home. Damn. RIP.

I am no fan at all of whatever is passing for conservative America at the moment, but shrill articles like this do nothing to aid public discourse. In the pursuit of some patented AVClub snark, the entire first paragraph buries Allen in a tirade of every worst-case evil attributed to the current regime, making it…

I found the first two to be so fucking cool and self-sustaining that you could read only those to great profit and almost no loss. After that, what was deliciously mysterious and hinted at becomes clarified and elaborated with (in my opinion) an increasingly cumbersome mythology and (in undisputed fact) a swelling…

I disconcur. (Does Lebowski permit us to do that yet?) Are we to dismiss latter Dickinson because she hews to the style of early Dickinson? Style innovation for its own vital sake is for commercial directors selling shoes. The better question is: what is Malick selling, and what questions is he posing about those…

Is it a slow day, or does Hassenger often venture into the comments board? Pretty damn cool of…uh, her? him?…to come mix it up so much. At its best, this site is still one of the all-time best.