Several segments of the U.S. news media have run reports to the effect that the internationally popular Hello Kitty character is not a cat but a little girl. But the company behind Hello Kitty, Sanrio, has clarified that Hello Kitty … Continue reading
When wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park after a 70-year absence they had a remarkably wide-ranging set of effects. Most immediately they helped control the elk and coyotes, not just by killing some but by altering their behavior. As … Continue reading
Highlights of a performance featuring soap bubbles, the most elaborate I’ve seen. Worth at least a look: Link: http://youtu.be/KMrvR836TFI by … Continue reading
At the start of the second live-action Astérix and Obélix film (I reviewed the first one here), Caesar annoys Cleopatra (gorgeous Monica Bellucci) by telling her that Egyptian greatness is all in the past, so to prove him wrong she … Continue reading
One of my favorite things about high school French was reading a series of comics wittily written by René Goscinny (who tragically died in 1977 at the age of 51) and brilliantly illustrated by Albert Uderzo. The protagonists were Gauls … Continue reading
Alas, another sequel that doesn’t live up to the original, which wasn’t all that great to start with. (And he never once gets to say “Hammer time!” unless I missed it.) Natalie Portman apparently saw The Avengers (a much better … Continue reading
Reformed super-villain Gru is recruited to help a shadowy agency track down a super-villain of the unreformed sort, and in the course of this Gru acquires a girlfriend, an agent of the Anti-Villain League voiced by Kristen Wiig. I forget … Continue reading
Until earlier this year I’d somehow never heard of this Coen brothers movie about a physics professor in the upper Midwest of the 1960s who suddenly has to deal with a set of personal and professional crises. From my goyishe … Continue reading
In journalism there is supposed to be a “Chinese wall” separating “church and state” — the news and business sides of a news outlet (though which is church and which is state probably depends on your point of view), but … Continue reading
No, I don’t mean The Conjuring (reviewed in the previous post); I mean yet another political ad featuring somebody complaining about the Affordable Care Act who actually turns out to have benefited from it. An article by Eli Stokols at … Continue reading