Author: Ruben Bolling

I don't know… Justin Bieber just doesn't look as cute without his bangs.

 

Check out this footage of a baseball drill from the Mets' spring training camp.  Each catcher (here Mike Nickeas, then my twitter buddy Josh Thole (@Josh_Tole) have to do a somersault, put on his glove, then catch a mid-air pop up.

 

It's like a Minute To Win It stunt.  I love it.

via metsblog.com

 

 

http://service.twistage.com/plugins/player.swf?p=link&v=78a922880880b

Judge Scalia kicks butt across the time/space continuum in search of ORIGINALISM!

 

BONUS POINTS: Can you find the one thing Scalia and I agree on?  (Hint:  it has to do with pizza and Chicago.)

 

 

You think I'm makin' this stuff up?  From the January, 2011 issue of California Lawyer:

 

Q:  In 1868, when the 39th Congress was debating and ultimately proposing the 14th Amendment, I don't think anybody would have thought that equal protection applied to sex discrimination, or certainly not to sexual orientation. So does that mean that we've gone off in error by applying the 14th Amendment to both?
Scalia:  Yes, yes. Sorry, to tell you that. … But, you know, if indeed the current society has come to different views, that's fine. You do not need the Constitution to reflect the wishes of the current society. Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't. Nobody ever thought that that's what it meant. Nobody ever voted for that. If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, hey we have things called legislatures, and they enact things called laws. You don't need a constitution to keep things up-to-date. All you need is a legislature and a ballot box. You don't like the death penalty anymore, that's fine. You want a right to abortion? There's nothing in the Constitution about that. But that doesn't mean you cannot prohibit it. Persuade your fellow citizens it's a good idea and pass a law. That's what democracy is all about. It's not about nine superannuated judges who have been there too long, imposing these demands on society.

…

 

Q:  You more or less grew up in New York. Being a child of Sicilian immigrants, how do you think New York City pizza rates?
Scalia:  I think it is infinitely better than Washington pizza, and infinitely better than Chicago pizza. You know these deep-dish pizzas—it's not pizza. It's very good, but … call it tomato pie or something. … I'm a traditionalist, what can I tell you?

 

Oh, Antonin.  How can you be so very wrong, and yet so very right?

 

 

This week, many people had problems viewing the comic both on Boing Boing (fixed as of Wednesday afternoon) and Gocomics (not yet fixed fixed as of Friday evening).  It's a shame, because I'm as happy with the way this one came out as any comic I've done in a long time.

 

I suspect both viewing problems are my fault.  A couple of weeks ago, as if acting in concert, both Boing Boing and Gocomics simultaneously approached me about my posting the comics to those sites myself.  The previous method was that I'd email the comics to them, and they'd do whatever magic was necessary to make them appear on the websites at the proper time.  They both sent me instructions on how to do this myself, which were detailed and thorough, but unfortunately not idiot-proof.

 

As an example:  Gocomics sent me instructions on labeling the posted file with the code 110211 for the year, month and date.  Then Boing Boing sent me instructions to use the code 20110209.  I actually wrote an email back with what may be the dumbest question I've ever asked:  I said that I understood that 11 was the year, 02 was the month and 09 was the date, but asked what the 20 prefix was.  Apparently I forgot what millennium I was in.

 

Anyway, I ended up making what I think was the same technical mistake on both (RGB vs. CMYK?!), causing the comic to be unreadable by Internet Explorer.  Since the issue still isn't fixed on Gocomics, here is the comic, in a form that should be visible to everyone (I hope!).

 

 

By the way, one reader reported that he can only see the comic's colors, which is strange.  But he linked to that image — it created an interesting effect:

 

 

 

I understand there was a problem viewing today's comic on Boing Boing using the Internet Explorer browser.  That should be fixed now… Click here or on the links in the post below.

Click here to read it.

 

 

 

Peter Sagal of NPR's "Wait, Wait … Don't Tell Me" name checks me, and gets the take on Chicago deep dish pizza right.  The truth will out.

 

 

 

DID YOU KNOW fun facts about the Super Bowl?

 

Click here.

 

 

 **SPOILER ALERT** Don't read this if you don't want to know key plot points in the movie "True Grit," and the outcome of this weekend's Super Bowl.

 

Shouldn't this guy have been the protagonist of a Coen brothers version of "True Grit"?

 

I've read that "True Grit" is unlike other Coen brothers movies in that it's not "ironic."  As much as I'd like to resist that label, I've got to admit it rings true; it seems to be their most sincere work.  But I was struck by another, related way in which "True Grit" stands out from their other movies.

 

Most Coen movies have as their protagonists people who are in way, way over their heads; naïve incompetents in situations far beyond their capabilities, buffeted by forces that are either chaotic or malevolent.

 

And within this paradigm, many Coen movies are about a simple man, or a simpleton, who thinks he's smart enough to get away with some transgression, but the forces that line up in reaction are totally beyond what he expects or understands, and are often even supernaturally powerful.

 

-  In "Raising Arizona," an idiot crook hatches an idiotic plan to kidnap a baby, and is relentlessly pursued by a possibly supernaturally powerful bounty hunter.

 

-  In "O Brother Where Art Thou," three idiot convicts escape from prison and are relentlessly pursued throughout the film by a policeman who may or may not be the Devil.

 

-  In "No Country For Old Men," an ordinary guy takes money from a drug deal gone bad, and is pursued by an impossibly relentless hit man with a cattle bolt pistol.

 

Ordinarily, the protagonist in a Coen brothers "True Grit" movie would be Tom Chaney (played by Josh Brolin, who actually played the hapless, pursued protagonist in "No Country For Old Men"), the idiot ranch hand who kills his employer while drunk.  And told from his perspective, Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) would be the relentless, hyper-competent pursuer, only occasionally glimpsed by the viewer, until the climactic conflict.

 

Instead, it's a movie told from the perspective of this pursuer (and his 14-year-old preternaturally capable employer).  And the designated Coen-Bros.-dumbass who gets himself in way over his head is merely a footnote at the end of the movie.

 

This is certainly related to Todd Alcott's observation that unlike other Coen brothers movies, in which protagonists are at the mercy of those with capital, in "True Grit," the 14 year old protagonist Mattie is the one with money, and she uses it expertly to manipulate those around her.

 

Focusing on bumbling protagonists who don't understand the situation/world they're in is what many would call an ironic or even nihilistic take on dramatic storytelling.  Focusing on three flawed but very competent people trying, through the filter of various motives, to do the right thing, and overcoming obstacles in order to do so, is very Western, very non-ironic, and the very inversion of a Coen brothers movie.

 

I just saw that Tim Kreider's new book, Twilight of the Assholes is out!  Kreider is an amazing cartoonist; he combines the intensely political with the the intensely personal in a way that is as brilliant as it is original.  Profane, angry, hilarious.  You will love this book.

 

Click on the image to buy it.

 

 

Plus there's an introduction by Matt Taibbi, so it's got that going for it.