Jeff George Starke, former Redskins offensive lineman, in Dan Steinberg and Chris L. Jenkins, “Black fans have grown to love the Redskins,” Washington Post, October 27, 2011
This is actually a really interesting article.
——
UPDATE: Corrected the player’s name because apparently I can’t read. Thanks, Andrew, for the correction.
Anything else?
When I get the greatest superpower of all time — the power to journey into fictional worlds, Gumby-like — I’m totally going to hook up with Liza Weld from In the Loop. Anti-war wonks who go to punk shows and work at the State Department and are apparently Anna Chlumsky? Yes please!
Apart from that and the copious cursing, one thing I particularly enjoyed about In the Loop was how accurately it captured (the governmental side of) Washington. Well done, Armando Iannucci. My experience is with the legislative branch, not the executive, but it still felt quite real.
Armando Iannucci, “Step right up to Politicsville, USA,” The Guardian, June 15, 2008
On one hand, this is hilarious and accurate. On the other hand, someone needs to buy Iannucci a Fat Trel tape.
Veep was so insanely accurate. More than any other fictional representation of that town, it really seemed like the place I knew for a little while a few years ago. Here are a few things that seemed incredibly real:
- Totally messy congressional offices with coffee machines that don’t work
- Arrogant young dudes with low-paying but high-power jobs, who really rate themselves
- Fake signatures
- “It’s intern season”
- Signing a card for a rapey Senator’s widow
Here’s a few things that seemed fake:
- The Chief of Staff messing up the fake signature. Hello, there’s an autopen for a reason
- The VP’s poorly-attended event. There would have been 400 interns there to eat the free quiche.
More to come, as I remember
Yeah, all of this. So in love with this show.
Also on the fake side of things: I never saw a Senate office as nice as the one in this episode. I may have missed something, but I spent a not insignificant time wandering around Russell, and John Kerry’s office was just up the hall from mine, and nothing I saw was that cushy.
Still, I point out this insignificant stuff because, as Erin says, the rest was so perfectly on point.
Alex Pareene, “No one gets lucky at Washington’s prom,” Salon, April 30, 2012
This, however:
This year, the president delivered some funny jokes about how he once ate a dog. He killed. (Do other democracies do this? I’m honestly asking. Does Australia’s PM have to deliver a stand-up routine to a frigid crowd of media executives and Australian soap opera stars once a year?)
Astonishingly, Alex, other countries are also host to the absurd shenanigans of the political class. American exceptionalism apparently extends to a conviction that America is exceptionally awful!
Australian reporters have the Press Gallery’s Midwinter Ball. The media here frequently compares that event to the WHCD. Political media everywhere is vain and self-important.
Marc Ambinder, “Ten Things I Learned During a Decade in D.C.,” GQ, May 15, 2012
Also contains this fun joke:
After eleven years living in Washington, D.C., part of me is just sick of this swamp. The superficial commentary, the power-driven egoists, the fake smiles, the obsession with image. That’s why I’m moving to Los Angeles.
Follow the brilliant career of Jonathan Bradley, noted iconoclast, libertine, and man of letters. When he's not blogging here, he blogs at The United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, Australia. Jonathan is the editor of American Review magazine's daily Blog Book section and a daily editor at the Singles Jukebox.
e-mail: saturdayclubproductions [at] gmail.com
twitter: @_jbradley
