I’m behind on this and just finished up the second season last night. Overall, I really like the show. If The Wire is A+ Simon, I’d say The Deuce is B+/A- Simon. The Wire really sprawled out into so many different facets of the city and introduced so many memorable characters that you really felt like you knew the…

There’s also that reporting from the NYT with quotes from Sam Nunberg saying that his advisors only told Trump to talk about a wall early on in his campaign because they knew he liked building things, and this would make sure he didn’t forget to sound tough on immigration. I guess it was one of those things that was…

I get that feeling, but I comfort myself with the thought that making it to the end of life having been a basically decent, moral person throughout is no mean feat in today’s world. At 40, I think I’ve made it (at least) halfway there.

I can’t remember who it was, but there was an interview on NPR with a Middle East scholar who basically went back to the 1950s to show that the U.S. has had the same reaction to every new Saudi leader. It always starts with, “He is more sympathetic to Western values and really is reform-minded. If we just give him…

Yeah, like I’ve said before, I don’t think the wall would hugely harmful, so I’m OK with a deal that gives some funding for it, if Democrats get something good in return. Chances are that Trump will be lazy and ineffective and not actually get much of the wall built before he’s gone anyhow.

I know this comment is coming well after the fact, but I just watched Buster Scruggs last night and came to see what the AVClub had to say.

I think Rush has an answer for that scenario.

I kind of feel the same way. I legitimately liked S1 of Luke Cage until Diamondback showed up, but I never got around to finishing that season, and I stopped 2 or 3 episodes into S2 of Luke Cage as well. In general, Luke Cage was way more competently made than Iron Fist, but I did think the character was so wooden…

This is what I don’t understand. If the wall is so all-important to our safety (the white walkers will just come streaming across without it!), why wouldn’t Trump be willing to trade something pretty substantial for it? I think the wall is a really dumb idea and will be more or less ineffective, but I don’t think…

Yeah, I’m a white dude, and while my wife is from the Philippines, so we wanted to like a sitcom about an interracial couple with an Asian-American wife, but it was just not good. My wife has a pretty high tolerance for crappy TV (she’s watching all of these awful Korean romcoms now), but even she was OK giving up on…

I’ve done some light research on the current state of the real sexbot industry for “academic” purposes, and while it seems like the market is dominated by female sexbots, there are some male sexbots out there, and more are on the way. 

Yeah, I wasn’t crazy about Pelosi being speaker again at first. I live in Pittsburgh, so even though I’m not in that district, I saw all the campaign ads for the Conor Lamb races this past year. Pretty much all the Republican ads could say was, “HE’S GOING TO DO WHATEVER NANCY PELOSI SAYS!” with the requisite…

I hate the songs, the crass materialism, and the Christian religious ideas associated with it, but after moving to PA from FL 9 years ago, I’ve re-interpreted the holiday as a celebration of the solstice, the beginning of more daylight, and a pushback against the darkest days of the year. That helps me appreciate all…

I’m sure others have said this, but I feel like Superstore basically is the new Office at this point. While it’s not as good as The Office at its peak, Superstore is certainly better than the last couple seasons and is likely better than any potential Office revival. 

Yeah, I’m two episodes in and don’t have any serious complaints. Even if there’s no one as electric as Moura/Escobar, there’s pretty good performances from the cast all the way around, and the show, as always, does a great job creating an atmosphere and fleshed out world. Without having watched the whole season, I can…

Yeah, I was really hoping for a Jesse-centered show once BCS wrapped up. 

Maybe others didn’t need the subtext made text, but I really appreciated Matt’s explicit explanation of the role that God and Catholicism played in his vigilantism. I knew theoretically that being Catholic was a big part of his identity as Daredevil, but it didn’t click for me why it was so important until this…

Yeah, I was thinking about this the other day. I have lots of shows on my watch list still, but I’d say they range from OK to pretty good rather than pretty good to GOAT-contender. Maybe Bojack and The Good Place are exceptions...

I read an article this week by an Australian political scientist, Lisa Hill, making the case for compulsory voting. I’m not sure how I feel about that overall, but hearing about the specifics of what they do to get people to vote (government sponsored get out the vote efforts, mail-in ballots, mobile polling booths,…

I don’t like this line of quasi-nihilistic reasoning. It’s what allows Trump to say, “Well, we kill people too. Why not be besties with Putin?” Of course the US does lots of bad stuff and fails to live up to the best of our ideals much of the time, but that doesn’t mean that we couldn’t/shouldn’t advocate for those…