Category — Off the Cuff

Screwing the blue pooch
Jack Gillis thinks the Blue Dogs’ days are numbered: read more... (2)

Leaving the 'Sphere
Friend of the Blog Sonny Bunch hangs up his spurs at Conventional Folly. He’ll be missed. (0)

Freedom Scam?
Debbie Schlussel calls Sean Hannity’s Freedom Alliance charity a scam.  If a charity is only spending 12% (or less) of the money it brings in to provide the services that the charity was set up to provide when the appropriate benchmark is somewhere around 75%, then if that charity was soliciting me for money, there’s no way in hell I would give them anything. (6)

Brooks on Blond
If you’re looking for a good introduction to the Red Tories, David Brooks’ column does a much better job of explaining Philip Blond’s philosophy than my muddled post. Blond is also is speaking at Villanova next week. He’s an engaging guy, and any readers in the area are encouraged to attend. (2)

He doesn't look a thing like Jesus
WSJ: “He cited the case of a painter whose stock in trade had been portraits of Lenin. The man was now earning his living churning out religious subjects. But, my friend added, so ingrained were his earlier habits that every time he painted the face of Jesus, he wound up with a likeness of Lenin.” (2)

World Building
Via Alan Jacobs, here’s an interesting critique of modern fantasy writing from The New Atlantis: read more... (3)

The League of Ordinary Madness (II)
The League’s official NCAA tournament group is now up and running. Unfortunately, you have to register at ESPN to get in, but signing up makes you eligible for a generous prize package (to be determined). Trash talking is encouraged; the group password is “blogging.” (28)

The League of Ordinary Madness
To compensate for all our highbrow talk of philosophy, the classics, French cinema, and Battlestar Galactica, I’m thinking of setting up a League NCAA tournament pool. Drop a comment if you’re filling out a bracket; assuming there’s enough interest, I’ll set up a group. Top prize to be determined. (9)

Remix Culture!
Provoked by a great Battlestar Galactica-Sabotage mash-up, Sonny Bunch gets curmudgeonly about remix culture. The ensuing comment thread is pretty interesting; the (awesome) video that started it all is below the fold: read more... (7)

Chatroulette
Kieran Healy won’t be playing chatroulette anymore. Which is sort of a pity, because I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time. (0)

The Tea Party-Social Conservative Split
Tension between libertarian-leaning tea partiers and the GOP’s social conservative base was probably inevitable, but the most interesting part of the Politico’s story on a split within the movement is a disagreement over the protesters’ tone: read more... (24)

Stick to lending books
Birmingham’s new library is billing itself as “a palazzo of human thought.” Adding injury to insult, the proposed design is just dreadfully ugly. (2)

Good Eugene Robinson column on "Jihad Jane" and security profiling
Read the whole thing here. (14)

TV Quote of the Day
“I’d rather dip my jewels in honey and go on a bear watch.” –Shawn Spencer, Psych Season 4 Episode 15  in response to Gus asking him whether he would like to watch his dad hit on a scientist. (1)

John Yoo: Not criminal, just incompetent
David Cole assembles some devastating criticism from Yoo’s former colleagues: read more... (4)

The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society should top this list
Wired has assembled the best concept albums of all time. (6)

The League Diaspora
Ordinary Gentleman Matthew Schmitz discusses Eric Rohmer and French New Wave Cinema for First Things. (4)

Processolatry
We destroyed these people’s lives, and we propose to buy off their suffering with congressional campaigns? Jesus wept. (19)

Give us press passes!
An intrepid Baltimore blogger pushes for press access at Maryland’s State House  (via Splice). (0)

Lack of Self-Awareness Watch
Sean Penn:

Because every day, this elected leader [Chavez] is called a dictator here, and we just accept it! And accept it. And this is mainstream media, who should – truly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies.

Because Laws Are for the Little People
“The Saint Patrick’s Day event hosted by the Friendly Sons is a 640-person dinner at the Capital Hilton that has included Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer and President Obama’s national security adviser James L. Jones. Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett has attended and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley has served as keynote speaker. The dinner, now in its 82nd year, includes a report from the Irish Embassy, Irish jokes, a “Danny Boy” solo from former congressman Jim Symington — and cigars.” (4)

Alvar Aalto
I’ve heard Alvar Aalto described as a highbrow precursor to IKEA (which is emphatically not a Finnish company, by the way), but I’ve always appreciated how warm and welcoming his designs seem when compared to the imposing angles of other modernist architecture. The NYRBlog has a nice appreciation, as well as a qualified defense of his political sympathies during World War 2. (1)

Detroit, again
Outsiders moaning about Detroit’s woes can be a little unseemly (see this photo gallery, for example), but it’s hard not to feel for the residents of this embattled neighborhood. Read the whole thing, as they say. (13)

I never get tired of these.
The conservative-attack-on-Ayn-Rand essay isn’t anything new, and I don’t know if anyone will ever top Whittaker Chambers’s classic review of Atlas Shrugged, but The New Criterion’s Anthony Daniels has made another entry in the genre. read more... (27)

Jeopardy recruits heavily from our blogroll
First James Poulos of Postmodern Conservative, now frequent commenter Kyle Matthews of Vogue Republic. We expect (nay, demand!) an incredibly dorky blog shout-out when Trebek interrogates you after the first commercial break, Kyle. (3)