Everyone is always babbling about the "Bradley Effect"—the supposed tendency of white people to tell pollsters they'll vote for a black guy even though they're racist and won't—and how it might hurt Barack Obama in two weeks. But honestly the Bradley Effect doesn't seem to be applicable this year. Not because white…
Movie critic Elvis Mitchell (remember him? crazy-but-readable Times crit in those glorious pre-Manohla fucking Dargis days?) had $12,000 seized by U.S. border guards as he tried to go back home to Detroit from Canada. Mitchell was hiding the money in a cigar box, along with some Cubans, and he declared only $80. When…
Canadians. Just last week we learned that they are stealing our jobs, brownstones, and potential mates. But this is apparently all we know about them, if two recent news items are to be believed. First, a "comedian" on a "comedy" television show was forbidden by producers from making jokes about Canada or even …
2,000 words on "Canadians who live in New York—sure, that's a trend" and yet the name "Sklar" does not appear once. You guys didn't do your homework. Still, we learned lots of other terrifying things about these foreigners and what they want from us: our jobs! Canadians, you see, are a mysterious and dangerous race…
CNN shouter Lou Dobbs is apparently "mulling a run for New Jersey governor." Oh, please let that be true! Current governor Jon Corzine is quite unpopular and "Republican officials" claim the oddly orange-hued pseudo-populist pundit is "taking steps toward running" for that prestigious office himself. We cannot think…
Under the Same Moon is, we're told, "a heart-warming tale of a Mexican immigrant mom working as a domestic in Los Angeles, and her Mexico-residing son from whom she's separated." It will open in limited release in April, and apparently the attached commercial for it is airing today on CNN. CNN specifically because…
Legendary SciFi author Larry Niven is apparently a far-right-wing crank. A far-right-wing crank who advises the Department of Homeland Security! Niven, famous for his richly detailed stories of precisely defined aliens coexisting with humans, is now famous for trying to explain to a room full of government officials…
Hispaniola-born Junot Díaz and Edwidge Danticat swept the National Book Critics Awards, winning for the The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and for Brother, I'm Dying. Díaz beat out real American writers like Joyce Carol Oates for the prize. But for serious, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is one of the best…
Mustachioed embarrassment to the profession of journalism Geraldo Rivera appeared on The View today, where he castigated fellow blowhard Lou Dobbs for the sorts of things we have regularly attacked him for, but it was Geraldo saying it so we all felt a bit silly. Of course, Geraldo works for noted reasoned advocates…
Thanks to New York's secretive and shadowy Canadian Cabal for their fast and servicy response to our story on how they control the media! Canadian media critic Rachel Sklar jumped into action, quickly posting her exhaustive list of all the Canadians she could think of. More than 70! Some of them are dead (Peter…
A story in Canada's National Post about how Canadian journo Clive Thompson is secretly jealous of more famous Canadian author Malcom Gladwell made brief mention of "a Canadian mafia of print journos that exists in the Manhattan magazine world." There are more Canucks in the New York media world than you might imagine,…
In solidarity with striking T.V. writers, huge 20-pound rats have been spotted in creeks and marshes in New Jersey. Sort of. They're actually nutria, not rats, but they're giant, furry rodents who are apparently very damaging to fragile natural ecosystems like those of the Garden State.
