Very true, and the fact that there was not a draft in the US after the mid-1970s was often cited as a big reason why protests against the Iraq Debacle were few.

Gotta do something after the sun goes down.  Future-nerds aren't going to be having any more sex than now, so storytelling sounds like a good option when you can't fall asleep.

The C-Train is one of the numerous lines of the New York subway (many others have numbers, still others have letters).  Maybe there's a particular feel or character to the C-Train that is known to New Yorkers?  That's my guess.  I think it's a stupid comment from Mr. Reid, since why would anyone outside of New York…

True dat.  "Hip" was a relic from an earlier time.  It was only used in quotation marks, ironically, and to imitate what we thought Jack Kerouac might say about something.

Ugh, again with this "the Midwest is backward, conservative, and ignorant" bullshit.  You'd blow the whole country's mind in your scenario above, not just the Midwest's.  The Midwest is a real geographical, economic, and cultural place; it's not just a shorthand phrase for what people think represents backwardness,…

That was my friend's point.  Beards, all by themselves, freaked people out in that era, after 50 or 60 years of men being clean-cut.  A beard alone in the 1950s was enough to make some people think you were a communist.

This is the first I'm hearing of this, @eric827:disqus , but I have no trouble believing it.  That is so Raven!

No one wants to lose their job.

My theory is that he's the ghost of Lane Pryce, hanging around the office, doing good things for those who were kind to Lane (like Joan), and tormenting those who were nasty to Lane (like Pete).  In the meantime, he entertains himself with motivational recordings and Michael Ginsberg's lunacy.

That's exactly why I thought Raven Simone's character on The Cosby Show was a spy.

Hey, is this a good place to remind Hollywood casting agents that Ellen Page and Christina Ricci should play sisters in a movie, and Annette Benning should be their mother?

There is no way I'm clicking on a link with "Chubbies" in the name at work.

I am guessing that Bob Benson rides a bicycle everywhere, because those are some powerful thighs.

I am completely in awe.

"Have you been down South?  They have their own way of doing things, and it doesn't include Harry Belafonte." — Stan, c. 1965

Better dead than spread?

"Hey Stwong Sylvia, I bwought back youw fondue pot!"

Sly RFK reference!

I would have dated it similarly.  Maybe we only know about when it went mainstream in national politics, but there could have been a slowly, ominously rising current of it in American public life that only came to a head in the Carter and Reagan years.  Maybe that's what Lundberg is responding to?

You're right about that last part.  People did start spouting that nonsense.  "We'd have won in Vietnam if we'd stuck it out!"  Yeah, right, G. Gordon, just like we "won" in Iraq.