As a white person, I shudder to think who "represents" or "speaks for" me, as Lil Wayne and Kanye West apparently speak for black America.

Is this sarcasm, or the worst examples of pure, Christian musicians imaginable? Jimmy Page was so into the occult that he bought Aleister Crowley's house…Madonna has made a career out of calculated blasphemy…and the Stones…come on.

Well, hip hop is sometimes attacked in a directly racist way (see the cartoon above). If I say "hip hop is not my thing" (or more obnoxiously, "hip hop is not even music!"), then it might be hard for you to tell where I'm coming from. Maybe I'm a racist, or maybe I'm just a snooty opera fan. Certainly, every hip…

Like stee, moanin ludlow!

Just wanted to mention the bit in Ghost World, when Steve Buscemi, the record collector nerd, passes on a Skip James album to the teenager, and it blows her mind. Which is natural, because Skip James rules.

There are a few examples of this pattern (actor plays bit part, then a different, major part) on Star Trek: Mark Leonard appears as a Romulan commander, and later as Sarek. Majel Barrett plays a random crew member in the old series pilot, then Nurse Chapel, and then Troi's mom in Next Generation. The guy who plays…

Well, you've got…
— Elizabeth I protecting the world from the Zygon invasion, and killing one by her own hand
— the Brigadier's daughter running UNIT and threatening to blow up London with nukes, to save the world
— Rose/Bad Wolf as the most powerful weapon in all of time and space
— Clara saving the Doctors from the…

I really liked Five-ish Doctors. It was a nice surprise: I had no idea it was part of the 50th anniversary program. I'm glad the "leftover" doctors were remembered. My favorite was the Tom Baker in a gondola bit. God, Tom Baker is a weirdo.

Now I can log into my old AV Club account. Maybe it was a temporary hiccup. Hard to tell: it's different every day. And now I've got three accounts.

We can safely ignore pretty much everything you say here, since the first statement is plainly false. If you can't find Chomsky taking communists to task "even once," then you're not looking very hard. Check out his Understanding Power and the little book on anarchism, where he attacks Leninism/Stalinism directly. …

It's not really clear to me how much Zinn believed in those conspiracies. My sense is that (like other truthers) he demanded more investigation, and believed that the government was hiding things from us, but never went full-blown truther, claiming that the government was actually responsible for 9/11. I think it…

I've got Firefox 25.0.1 + NoScript + AdBlocker. You're right: I've gotta turn the plugins off to get into the new site (or else, use Internet Explorer). Clicking on my avatar only works if I'm already signed in, and that was the problem: i couldn't figure out how to do that! There are a bunch of tiny boxes in the…

A perfect illustration of Chomsky & Herman's worthy/unworthy victims idea. In Part 1 of the story (US destruction of Cambodia) we don't give a flying fuck about the Cambodians' fate. In Part 2 (Khmer Rouge era), now the Cambodians are worthy of our concern, because the perpetrators are our enemies. In Part 3…

The movie left me wanting more, more, more of Bradley as Doctor #1…but I guess this is all we get.

I didn't notice any of the cameos, except for Jean Marsh…who I know and love from Upstairs Downstairs, not Doctor Who (I think she appeared in episodes that are gone forever, right?).

I had the same reaction to the Troughton double. It's a nitpick, but they got some of the other details so exactly right, this guy's appearance stuck out like a sore thumb.

I just watched The Keys of Marinus, and was surprised to find that the Doctor doesn't appear at all in a couple of those episodes.

That was pretty cool. Where did the guitar go?!

How dare you, sir. True, it's not mindless noodling. It's very tasteful, intricate, clean playing, which is why it sounds so wrong (and so dated) to me…for this song, anyway.

On the one hand, I agree that the "I'm too cool for classic rock" attitude is fucking gross, and makes no sense when the topic is guitar solos. But on the other hand, some of my favorite guitar playing is of the sloppy punk variety. Especially Ron Asheton and Greg Ginn. (Are they shitty guitarists or geniuses? I…