Monday Medley

What we read while everyone said “winning”…

• If you’re not excited for baseball season yet, then you should probably stop over at Joe Posnanski’s website: His tribute to the late Duke Snider (as well as his investigation of the 1955 MVP award), along with his look at the career of Jeff Francoeur certainly have us excited for spring. And if you don’t have a baseball team to root for, here’s a very helpful flowchart…

• A few weeks ago, John S described how impressed he was by IBM’s Watson, so you can imagine his surprise when the supercomputer lost to someone from New Jersey (Hint: It wasn’t Tim).

• Speaking of technology, 3D printers are cool and now being used for food.

• Finally, someone has highlighted the brilliance and wonder that is Bill Raftery.

• Some passive-aggressive emails from Donald Rumsfeld to Condoleeza Rice.

• The Obama Administration’s decision not to defend a federal law (the Defense of Marriage Act) is not unprecedented.

• An NPI-favorite comic makes his Conan debut.

• NPI-favorite blogger Tyler Cowen has some interesting theories on why the quality of fiction is decreasing faster than the quality of non-fiction.

Monday Medley

What we read while Colin Firth managed to give a stutter-less acceptance speech…

• Natalie Portman won the Best Actress award last night, so it’s worth asking: Is Natalie Portman a good actress? Slate ran two stories that seem to say “no.” Slate also dished on The King’s Speech and stuttering.

• We know one Egyptian who will be retroactively upset The Social Network didn’t win Best Picture.

• Suze Rotolo, of this famous album cover, died last week, meaning pop music lost perhaps it’s greatest muse (it’s either her or Pattie Boyd, right?).

• Have you ever wanted to hear Louis C.K. repeatedly ask a former Secretary of Defense if he is an alien lizard? If so, then boy do we have a link for you…

• On his “other” other blog, Chris Jones riffs on the rules to the press box and the locker room for sports reporters. The latter drew some commentary from former hockey player Justin Bourne.

• Frank Lloyd Wright had a 10-point manifesto for his apprentices. It doesn’t necessarily conform with the philosophical tenets of the book he, in part, inspired.

• Man, when was the last time we had a batch of DFW links? Well, here’s an old Laura Miller interview with him, as well as a thoughtful look at the underappreciated Oblivion, and a look at the recently opened archives in Austin. And hey, this makes Infinite Jest slightly less confusing. Slightly.

• The multi-talented Donald Glover as a rapper.

• What your favorite classic rock band says about you…

• Charlie Sheen…er, uh, well, we don’t really know what to say….

Aught Lang Syne: George W. Bush

Thus far, our retrospective on the 2000s has focused mainly on “trivial” pop culture issues: things like what books we liked, which movies were good, whose album was the best, what sports team was the most memorable, etc. We’ve completely ignored things like 9/11, the war in Iraq, and the recession. Part of this is merely out of prudence: We like to show restraint in areas that seem to require some expertise. It’s also been out of charity: Unlike Mark Antony, we come to praise the Aughts, not to bury them, so focusing on the darker aspects of the Aughts is beyond our stated purpose.

Any look at this decade, though, would feel horribly insufficient without a look at the presidency of George W. Bush. Like no other single individual, President Bush defined the Aughts. Indeed, Bush may have defined the Aughts more than anyone has defined a decade since Julius Caesar—his global impact is that wide.

At this point, though, criticizing Bush is kind of like setting fire to an already beaten and bloodied horse carcass. After all, the failures of Bush are common knowledge by now, right?