Washed-Up Parabolic

Life is full of surprises. Two weeks ago, a professor from Ben-Gurion University publicly called me out on Twitter. That’s not surprising; I expect Jewish academics to dislike me. I have a rep, justified or not (spoiler alert: not). The surprising part was that the prof was angry that I’d yet ...

Breitbart’s Frog of War

I was gonna do a piece about Covid’s origin, as it’s been in the news again and readers have asked me to address it, but I’m putting it off for a week. Because the Pedro Gonzalez thing is stuck in my craw. Disclaimer: I have no idea where my “craw” is, but if it’s where I assume, ...

Jill, Hunter, and Joe Biden

Subpar Thinkers Implode in Coinci-density

Readers often ask, “Dave, why you always pickin’ on the right?” Nick Land, a rather well-known bloke, commented back in January: “Cole’s basic, consistent thesis is that the Left is just way better at politics than the Right. It’s not that he’s wrong, but if he’s right, can ...

Dan and Marilyn Quayle

The Devil Is the Details

Two weeks ago I wrote about the folly of viewing “I’m fleeing to a red state” as a panacea rather than a postponement, and last week I dealt with the right’s disdain for details and fondness for “paint with a wide brush” worldviews. Those themes are interconnected. “Wide ...

L.A. City Hall

The Right’s Big Brush-Off

Here’s a fun fact: My cousin was one of the attorneys who got silicone breast implants banned in the 1990s. As regular readers know, my biological dad killed Elvis. So my bloodline took away Elvis and boobies. That’s why I never had kids—Lord knows what manner of villainy they’d inflict ...

Should White Fight the Blight or Take Flight?

All last week, something seemed...off. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something wasn’t right. Like there was a void. Then it hit me! As Texas Republicans were slaughtering each other in the statehouse, “red state Twitter” had gone silent! You know, those rightists who arrogantly ...

Navaho Nation, Monument Valley

Six Feet Undergroundhog Day

Well, so much for last week’s experiment with a race-and-politics-free column about the entertainment industry; it landed with a thud so loud I checked my roof for Eric Clapton’s son (I did that joke years ago and it provoked a furious email from a deeply offended reader. So I’m repeating ...

Writers Gulled

My friends (and one or two foes) have informed me that my past few columns have been downers. “Can’t you do something a little lighter?” they ask. “Also, what’s your take on the WGA strike?” Happy to oblige, friends and foes who for once are not an imaginary opening-paragraph device ...

Brown Shirts ’n’ Skins

Last week a clip from something called “Timcast” went viral. Some round-faced, beady-eyed stoner (I think that’s “Tim”) was debating a manic Robert Downey Jr. look-alike (I guess that’s “cast”) about trannies. Robert Downeysyndrome was telling Tiny-eyed Tim that the massive uptick ...

Pessimistic River

Call it prescience...or bad timing. The moment I finished last week’s column, Pew released a poll proving my point about the difference between 1970s urban blight and that of the present; how it comes down to optimism back then (the belief that “the powers that be” opposed the rot) vs. ...