The Latest(ish)
First they came for the beef and cheese nachos. Now they have come for Cold Stone Creamery’s Mud Pie Mojo. In a development that was as predictable as it is absurd, the killjoy cranks over at CSPI, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, have issued a report denouncing ice-cream shops for hawking “coronaries in cones.” Well, no surprise there. Writing in the July issue of Reason magazine, Jacob Sullum describes how the center (despite its name, it has nothing do with either science or the public interest) has a menu of menaces that must not be allowed anywhere [...]
Iced Vice
August 28, 2003
Profoundly Disturbing: Shocking Movies that Changed History by Joe Bob Briggs The title is reassuringly lurid and the cover comfortingly nasty, but, on opening this book, anxious readers may worry that Joe Bob has left the drive-in. Now that would be profoundly disturbing. Author, journalist, cable-TV stalwart, and former NR columnist, Briggs overcame fictitious origins and nonexistent competition to become America’s finest drive-in-movie critic. He saw Nail Gun Massacre and he watched All Cheerleaders Die. Who else could take on that sort of responsibility? He is the Zagat of the Z-movie, the one indispensable guide for those who like slaughter, sex, [...]
Horror Show
August 26, 2003
Profoundly Disturbing: Shocking Movies That Changed History!; published originally in National Review
NEW YORK, NEW YORK — It was a nightmare for commuters, the sick, and for anyone with perishable food to sell. In an age of terrorism, the darkened buildings, stalled, stifling elevators, and idled subway cars were a haunting and, in those first minutes of power failure, terrifying reminder of the vulnerability of a complex technological society to a single well-targeted blow. But, as it turned out, for many in midtown Manhattan the blackout was, let’s admit it, really rather fun. As everyone now knows, the power went down shortly after 4 P.M. and, as the sultry summer afternoon drifted [...]
Who’s Afraid of the Dark?
August 18, 2003