Posted by: Woodwards Friend on April 26, 2009 at 10:25 am
Kristallnacht was among the most horrific events in western history. Nearly 100 people were killed, several hundred thousand more were sent to die in concentration camps, synagogues, homes, and businesses were burned by Nazi storm troopers. In the midst of this orgy of mob violence, a prominent German quietly hid two Jewish children and helped smuggle them to the United States. At the risk of getting all Paul Harvey…that man was former heavyweight boxing champion Max Schmeling.
I tell you this because National Public Radio, Max Schmeling was described as a “Nazi Poster Boy” on Friday morning. That superficial and slanderous meme is befits of the work Joseph Goebbels, not a respected news organization. It’s not like that information isn’t available in 10 seconds on the Google. The off-handed slander of Max Schmeling is but one of many things wrong with this dreary NPR commentary about the Joe Louis Fist from “adopted Detroiter” Celeste Headlee, the Douche of the Week.
Perhaps no one told “adopted” Detroiters that everyone else stopped caring about that dumb fist around 1990. Read more
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Tags: False Optimism, Fists, Max Schmeling, NPR
Posted by: Woodwards Friend on April 12, 2009 at 1:09 pm
There are few moments of cinema more satisfying than the murder of Mourie in Goodfellas. Like DeNiro said, I thought that guy would never shut up. One can only hope that Chad Johnson, proprietor of the Lady Jane’s haircutting emporia, also irritates mobsters. Say what you will about Mourie but his wig shop commercials weren’t as annoying Read more
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Tags: April In The D, Goodfellas, Lady Janes, Lions, Nate Robertson, Rochelle Riley
Posted by: Woodwards Friend on April 5, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Redneck disgraced ex-psychologist Dr. Nick Phil McGraw was in town last week with his rustic brand of simple answers for complex problems. He did this to help Detroit because Detroit is having problems. Also because Jay Leno received a lot of good publicity when he announced his free shows at the Palace. A lesser man would just name McGraw the Douche of the Week and spend the rest of the weekend downing Jaeger with drunken Michigan State co-eds.
How easy it would be to point out that “Dr. Phil” isn’t a practicing psychologist because the Texas State Board of Examiners suspended his license after he was caught fucking a 19-year-old patient. Filling out the rest of the douche column simply requires reciting a few basic facts about McGraw. For instance, that he had to pay out $10,500,000 in a class action lawsuit because his weight loss products did not work. Or how his shameless efforts to perform a televised intervention for Brittany Spears bordered on practicing psychology without a license. The guy is a huge dick and Read more
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Tags: Oprah
Posted by: Woodwards Friend on March 29, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Newspapers are dying off like investment banking houses. The Ann Arbor News is dead. Home delivery of the Detroit Free Press and News has gone the way of the milkman. Even the newspaper with the coolest name in the history of newspapers, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, is closing its doors. Let the teeth gnashing begin!
There’s no reason to rejoice at the decline of newspapering but, let’s be honest, who didn’t see it coming? Newspapers, or rather their corporate overlords, responded to increased competition by Read more
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Tags: new media, newspapers, olds, Rob Parker
Posted by: Woodwards Friend on March 22, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Let’s get this out in the open before we go any further: I have no strong opinions about the Facebook re-design. Facebook is a great way to burn those tedious weekday hours between nine and five, a source for important quizzes about the color of your aura, and the premier venue to market Wes Anderson film t-shirts but otherwise, really, who gives a shit? Everyone else on Facebook, apparently.
This isn’t the first time I’ve lacked a strong opinion while the rest of the world is in a lather. For instance, do I care what teenage girls think about a disposable male pop star beating up a Read more
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Tags: Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg
Posted by: Woodwards Friend on March 15, 2009 at 9:00 am
Every so often, a journalist speaks truth to power with such force that history is changed forever. For instance, J’accuse, Émile Zola’s expose of the Dreyfus Affair, or H.L. Mencken’s immortal framing of the Scopes Trial in Hills of Zion. In more recent times, Edward R. Murrow’s program during Senator Joseph McCarthy’s witchhunt, Seymour Hersh’s dispatches from the My Lai Massacre, and Woodward and Bernstein’s Watergate investigation all fundamentally changed policy and government operations. What does it say about these strange times that Jon Stewart, however accidentally, becomes our generation’s Zola?
Stewart’s two-week long campaign against financial journalism’s FAIL! train came to a head while interviewing CNBC’s Jim Cramer. The most compelling debate about our economic crisis involved one guy who rated the Bluth Company as “risky” and another who once hosted an MTV show with The State, i.e. the people responsible for $240 worth of pudding. Whatever, Jon Stewart is the only person with balls big enough to say that business and financial journalism is a vocation for jock-sniffing stenographers. In case you’ve been in a case this last week…
That brings us to New Yorker film critic David Denby, our Douche of the Week. Denby may be a passable reviewer of Jessica Alba or Michael Bay but he’s also a bag of sweaty mule dicks. His book Snark: It’s Mean, It’s Personal, and It’s Ruining Our Conversation wags a finger at the bull-in-a-china-shop ethos Stewart employed to eviscerate CNBC. Yes, Denby did offer that The Daily Show is ok because it has “civic virtue.” That’s kind of like the guy who explains a racist comment to a black acquaintance…oh but I don’t mean that about you! You’re one of the good ones! When The Daily Show rolls tape of a ponzi scheme shyster on CNBC saying “it’s fun being a billionaire” and Jon Stewart looks into the camera and shouts Read more
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Tags: CNBC, David Denby, Jon Stewart, Snark
Posted by: Woodwards Friend on March 8, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Barbara-Rose Collins’ behavior this week was irresponsible, out-of-line, and downright amusing. It shouldn’t surprise anyone who has paid attention to the last 25 years of local politics. Collins has spent much that time acting like an ass. The very fact that Collins still has a political career suggests that not enough of you people have been paying attention. Elected officials don’t exist in a vacuum so a lot of this blame has to fall on the Detroit electorate for repeatedly electing this third-rate dullard to office.
Nevertheless, Barbara-Rose Collins’ antics win her Detour’s inaugural Douche of the Week honor. This is almost a lifetime achievement award, of sorts. Barbara-Rose Collins is a woman who devoted her life to douchebaggery. We celebrate her entire catalogue.
Collins was a train wreck when she served in Congress. There were shady campaign finance doings, missed votes, and the firing of a gay employee because his partner had died of AIDS. That last thing is neither a rumor nor an allegation. It actually happened. A government grievance board reviewed the case and found Collins at fault. It remains the only occasion that a member of Congress was found to have wrongfully fired an employee. Apparently, Collins was afraid she might catch AIDS from her staffer because his boyfriend had it. Barbara-Rose Collins doesn’t much care for science. Or basic human decency.
When she resurrected her political career, Collins naturally won support from the gay community. In 2005, the Triangle PAC endorsed Collins’ re-election campaign for City Council. That makes sense. The NAACP often endorsed Lester Maddox for public office. Why politically aware gays and lesbians didn’t throw Molotov Cocktails at the Triangle PAC for that decision is a question for the ages. But we digress…
Barbara-Rose Collins is no ordinary douche. She is a royal douche. According to the City Council website: The Ghanan town of Pepease has designated her as a queen mother. Councilwoman Collins has said that “this is not merely an honorary position, but a genuine coronation, with all the responsibilities and privileges afforded to royal family members.”
Responsibilities and privileges, you say? Like wearing a tiara to work on your birthday? Then there are the events of Thursday last. Perhaps most comical and revealing was her recital of Onward Christian Soldiers during an incoherent rant about European imperialism. Comical, because Onward Christian Soldiers is an English hymn celebrating the missionary work of Europeans in the third world. Revealing, because there is a thin line between the pseudo-progressive religiosity of Collins’ pan-Africanism and old-fashioned right-wing dominionism.
Both worldviews envision benevolent religious dictatorships to protect the masses from such horrors as reason, science, and cultural diversity. Barbara-Rose Collins, in Barbara-Rose Collins’ mind, was selected by God to help the oppressed masses throw off the White Man’s chains. This kind of thinking, as crazy as Pat Robertson believing he prayed away a hurricane, is a central tenant of Collins’ Shrine of the Black Madonna Church. And if that ain’t douchebaggery, what is?
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