He'll keep directing till he needs glasses.

Am I the only person alive who thinks Tarantino is just the ultimate wanker fanboy? He was on NPR flogging his latest movie, and he said of course there were some adult parts. By that he meant scalpings, bludgeonings, and mutilations. Grown up stuff. And there are lots of people who use the term adult to mean entertainment featuring the exhibition of human genitalia. So apparently, adult content is defined as that which titillates smirking spotty junior-high boys. You know what would be funny? Open an Adult Bookstore, and it would be shelf after shelf of, like, Beckett and Wittgenstein.

In fairness, picayune actually means puny.

In this age of newspaper failures, the charmingly-named Times-Picayune is ahead of the curve. It failed some decades ago. They only keep printing it because they're too lazy to stop. The Sunday edition isn't any bigger than the daily except for a lot of ads, a really skimpy color funnies section, and Parade magazine (which avoids paying writers or editors by simply printing celebrity news releases verbatim). From the color sales inserts, I've learned the following apparently universal facts: Teenagers spend all their time playing air guitar. And having a really great laptop makes you want to use it barefoot.

Close enough for govt. work

When asked, I claim to be an unreconstructed anarcho-syndicalist. I can't wholeheartedly support representative government because I think it's like all those other systems that have been tried and shown conclusively not to work. However, even I have to admit that the government has on occasion successfully completed a few of its projects. For instance, I use their money. None of the stores in my neighborhood will take any other brand. We all use the Interstate Highway System. That works. Then there's the Moon landing, Yellowstone National Park... and World War II, with Ford Motors pulling for the other side.

Everything is permitted. Just don't enjoy yourself.

Hitman movies are a whole genre. They are to nerd love stories what cowboy movies once were to screwball comedies. There are subgenres, too. Hitman farce. Hitman romance. I certainly don't want to come across as weak and girlish, but killing people for money is bad, right? Starting a story off with the presupposition that the protagonist is morally compromised beyond all hope of redemption can only be appropriate for an audience that feels itself equally corrupt. Nobody would accept this if the heroes were rapists. The difference? Professionalism. This is America. Anything's okay if you do it for money.

You look like a douche in that hat

Bing Crosby could wear a stingy brim fedora. So could Sam and Dave, Murray the K, Hound Dog Taylor. Later, guys like Paul Simonon and Tom Waits just barely got away with it as an ironic gesture. That was a generation ago. Today, even Britney Spears knows those hats are over. They sell them at K-Mart. So lace up your little Vans. Sip your little Pabst. But lose the hat. Because you could wear an actual red rubber douchebag on your head with a chinstrap and still look like less of a douchebag than you do in that hat.

"Giant bacteria-filled balloon" is actually David Vitter's nickname.

An architect named Magnus Larsson is promoting his plan to stop the spread of the Sahara desert by putting up a 6,000 kilometer long wall stretching from Mauritania to Djibouti. He thinks that this can be done with a “barrage of giant bacteria-filled balloons.” Meanwhile, the President of the United States of America is promoting his plan to bring healthcare in his country up to the standards of the rest of the Western world. He thinks he can do this by getting legislators to act like responsible stewards of their constituents' future. Which of these guys is the more quixotic?

Pro-life's illusions

One big mistake progressives make is letting the voices of reaction define an argument. Anti-abortion groups present their issue as life vs. choice. They are willfully ignoring fully half of the possible opinion spectrum. The opposite of anti-abortion is pro-abortion – the position that all pregnancies should be terminated. A completely rational argument could be made for this as the only sure cure for human misery. In fact, for a moderate salary I'd be willing to lead a grassroots organization. And between the two extremes – abortion being either prohibited or compulsory – individual choice stands as the middle ground.