“I’m not from Appalachia, but confidently state the reason people think this isn’t a good depiction of the place I’m not from is because they don’t like its politics.”

“They” being the POC who have been fighting for racial justice for decades?

Hahaha I knew these comments would be hot fuckin garbage.

Jeez. Who knew so many centrists read your articles! All these slappies defending Obama. I can’t stand the Democratic party and it is so damn annoying that progressives have to vote for them as a true lesser of two evils. It goes both ways you center loving coalition building big tent asshats. The only centrist who…

Biden is not even sitting in the White House yet and the Democrats are already falling all over themselves trying to demonstrate that they are not that different from Republicans.

I’m not sure what this means. McConnell had no role in crafting the ACA as far as I know. Democrats had a supermajority, and were capable of passing a healthcare bill with no Republican input or support. He didn’t force Obama and Democrats to adopt the predictably-unpopular polices (such as forcing everyone to buy…

I think you may have misread my post, because we definitely disagree about this, and I disagree with basically everything you wrote, pretty vehemently, including the idea that it is activists’ job to worry about the electoral prospects of a party that disagrees with the policies they advocate for, the idea that…

For me, the book’s main problem is a lack of any larger context. Nobody ever asks what the point of memorizing all of this 80s pop culture is. You’d think that Wade would at some point confront the possibility that he won’t win the contest, and that he just watched/read/played/listened to all this stuff for nothing. I…

I also find it very baffling how someone like Cline can spend years of his life, writing two novels, on 1980s culture, a subject which he presumably is very interested in, yet has nothing to say about the ways in which popular culture interacts, influences, and is influenced by politics, economics, and society. He…

Let’s get Sherwood Morrill to do a handwriting analysis. The same Sherwood who drinks like Paul Avery now.

I agree she’s too focused on the friend and not the husband — or her own shortcomings in the marriage, perhaps? Displacement and whatnot.

The fact that you are writing a letter asking if it’s okay, pretty much tells you it isn’t. If your husband hadn’t been willing and able, this would be a non issue. He is the key piece of the puzzle, not the person he acted out with.

My friend was in a similar situation but instead of using misogynistic language, she used racist language to disparage her exes new girlfriend. Using misogynistic language perpetuates misogyny in a broader societal context, the horribleness of the person you are aiming your insults at is not relevant.

My understanding is gendered insults are bad because they weaponize existing inequalities, not because you cannot criticize another woman. I can hate and curse out Ivanka all I want without needing to say ‘she’s bad AND she’s a woman’. Just leave the second part out, it doesn’t add anything.

Anyone else uncomfortable watching Orlando continuously cut Katy off?

I finished the series, I don’t know any more clarification the audience would need to see how detrimental her substance abuse was to her future and even at the end of the series will be a demon she’ll continue to battle. My rock bottom was severe enough but I know lots in recovery that caught themselves before they…

“Her substance abuse issues are established early on, but her moments of binge-drinking and pill-popping excess are too archly depicted to ever approach rock bottom.”

It’s funny because by any reasonable standard, Bryan Adams is a superstar (17 million+ albums sold), and yet he is absolutely dwarfed by those two (200 million+ albums sold combined). Plus at that point he had already had a hit single with Tina Turner - after that, I wouldn’t give a shit about what Sting & Rod Stewart…

In a lot of ways it’s sort of the last of the 70mm “roadshow”-type adventure movies of the ‘60s and ‘70s, some of which were directed by Wise, like The Sand Pebbles. It’s definitely not in the same tradition as other ‘70s genre movies like Star Wars, CE3K, or Alien.

I’ll give you that Star Trek: The Motion Picture is long and breezily paced, but I respectfully disagree with most of your other points James.