Tobin Bennison
Article Category: Editors Note
It’s common practice to ascribe a person’s irrational behavior to his simian ancestors. When someone gets out of hand or starts acting “primitive,” we always seem to attribute the anomaly to some vestige of our animalistic, monkeyed past. What’s rarer is to hear people blame antisocial acts on our saurian relatives. Curiously, even those who refute evolution’s fundamental tenets are guilty of referring to criminals, perceived inferiors, and ethnic minorities of... [Read more...]
Tobin Bennison
Article Category: Editors Note
Last issue, to the displeausure of some readers — and, as it happens, to the approval of a great many others — I touched, ever so delicately, on the dreaded “C word.” This month, it’s another “C word” I’d like to address, one that’s arguably more loaded, if not similarly misunderstood. This “C word” is often invoked, usually with a dose of irony, and it’s widely agreed that, along with love and taste, no amount of money can buy... [Read more...]
Tobin Bennison
Article Category: Editors Note
I’ve always had a problem with the concept of the New Year’s Resolution. I’m all for positive change, don’t get me wrong, but I feel the Resolution is too open-ended and noncommittal to promote anything less than abject failure. Lent, on the other hand, is an idea I can get behind. With the simple act of contrition and the denial of one mere vice for a trial period, Lent inures one slowly to making small changes that have a better chance of becoming old habits by the time... [Read more...]
Tobin Bennison
Article Category: Editors Note
It’s hard to imagine now, but having a cool name like, say, Seamus Patrick O’Flanagan wasn’t seen as very cool not too long ago. We’re talking the 1850s, but still not very far back when you consider America’s relative youth as a nation. Discriminated against in their homeland as primitive layabouts and caricatured in the English press as prognathic, low-browed apelike creatures, many Irish came to places like New York and Boston in the wake of Ireland’s Great... [Read more...]
Tobin Bennison
Article Category: Editors Note
“And put it in the bumblebee glass,” is what my dad requested, after my offer to serve him some water, as I often did on Friday nights when I was allowed to stay up late with him to watch “M*A*S*H.” This errand had for years been part of our ritual, but on this night I found myself a little confused. “The bumblebee glass?” I asked, wondering what on earth he could be talking about. This was a new one. We had several of those promotional, collect-all-six glasses... [Read more...]
Tobin Bennison
Article Category: Editors Note
If 2010 was a befuddling episode in the history of civilization, then the decade it capped off could well be described as a multi-volume epic translated from the original Farsi into Mandarin Braille by a Basque orangutan using only the “Y” and “F” keys on a rusty Remington. And if that sounds like something Dennis Miller might have said, it’s because he did, according to an entry I just posted on Wikipedia. And until someone puts in the effort to refute it, there it... [Read more...]
Tobin Bennison
Article Category: Editors Note
Did you know that “It’s a Wonderful Life” hides a buried progressive message? Well it doesn’t, just in case, like deep thinker Glenn Beck, you were wondering. He’s hashed it all out and put in long hours of research, you see, so it’s safe to watch. “Norma Rae,” probably not. But “It’s a Wonderful Life,” pinko disease-free. But what Prof. Beck fails to deduce is that Frank Capra’s seasonal favorite is actually a pretty lousy movie.... [Read more...]
Tobin Bennison
Article Category: Editors Note
More rolls, Uncle Joe? So good to have you here with us this Thanksgiving. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? So, how are things up in Minnesota? Ohio. Right. How are things up there? Yes, well I suppose things are tough all over. What’s that? You’re fed up? I feel you, Joe, but I thought we agreed not to discuss politics at the table… Here, try the green beans. Yep, steamed ‘em myself. You’re steamed, you say? What on earth about? Do tell, Joe. I hate to... [Read more...]
Tobin Bennison
Article Category: Editors Note
Writing an Editor’s Note is a delicate business. You have to plan ahead and mull over different themes weeks prior to its appearance. Oftentimes, you’ll have maybe four or five distinct versions until you can narrow it down to the best one. Even oftener, a number of elements of these different versions will find their way into the one you decide to run with. You may have set out in one direction at the beginning of the month only to veer off toward another once the deadline clock starts... [Read more...]
Tobin Bennison
Article Category: Editors Note
Well I don’t know about you, but that was one bitch of a summer. And at the risk of sounding slightly perverse, I’m happy to see the back end of it sashaying sluttily into September. I’ll concede that it’s hard to see the point of suffering when you’re in the midst of it, and there’s all that garbage about hindsight providing 20/20 vision, but even if I live to be 90, damned if I’ll ever be able to make sense of the Summer of 2010. I take with me some fond... [Read more...]
