George Case's Blog, page 5

In Defence of Classic Rock

Here’s a small tip: if you ever find yourself with an irresistible hankering to hear Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama,” AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long,” or Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb,” but don’t have them in your music library, no problem: just tune in to your local Classic Rock radio station, and wait fifteen […]

I Believe You’re the Devil’s Child

As we look at all the radicalism recently displayed by America’s far-right militias and conspiracy theorists, the outrageousness of their beliefs is often noted but seldom considered in depth. The QAnon specter of a Satan-worshipping pedophile ring operating within the deepest recesses of the US government is a wild charge, to be sure, and there […]

Land Sakes

In Canada these days, many events like graduations, musical or theatrical performances, awards presentations, lectures, and other public functions are prefaced with an official statement acknowledging that the proceedings take place on the unceded ancestral territory of the local Aboriginal group.  As well, some Canadian institutions, such as the Ottawa Public Library, have installed permanent […]

Immigrant Song

The continued reckoning with anti-Black, anti-Indigenous, and other strains of racism has tended to see beneficiaries of privilege and victims of prejudice as fixed classes throughout North American history. If you don’t currently meet the modern criteria of disadvantage, neither do your ancestors; if your ancestors were particularly mistreated by a racist majority, then so […]

Midnight in America

The prospect of a second Donald Trump presidency has got me thinking about a pair of books by the American writer Morris Berman, Dark Ages America:  The Final Phase of Empire (2006) and The Twilight of American Culture (2000).  When I first read them years ago, I thought some of Berman’s pessimism was overstated – […]

Higher, Faster, Stronger, More Evil

The games of the DCLXVI Olympiad were opened in the host city of Hell last night, in a nightmarish ceremony that could have been directed by Hieronymus Bosch – and, indeed, was. A stirring chorus of “It’s a Small World After All” began the spectacle, sung by 20000 unbaptized children as they were roasted on […]

Why Orange Man Bad

Assassination attempt or not, the time to change anyone’s mind about Donald Trump has long passed.  Since 2016 his supporters have been convinced he is the man to Make America Great Again, and since 2020 they’ve been confident that his electoral loss to Joe Biden was engineered by foul means.  Over the same period, his […]

Innocent and Guilty Pleasures

We all aspire to good taste and high standards, and occasionally reach them. But our public or collective notions of artistic quality are sometimes very different from our personal preferences.  To illustrate, I’ve contrasted the following lists of “Greatest” versus “Favorite” works, based on the ideals of an imaginary but plausible individual (certainly not me). […]

Dragged Out

Another day, another protest against drag events.  Across numerous jurisdictions in Canada and the US, news reports now regularly tell of demonstrators picketing or disrupting schools and libraries where drag artists have scheduled readings to children.  In St. Catharines, Ontario, the public library’s Drag Queen Story Time was interrupted by a handful of angry objectors; […]

Just Between You and Me

In the ever-expanding lexicon of over- and misused words, justice deserves a special entry. We routinely hear of the need for social justice, while protesters often demand justice in particular legal cases (“No justice, no peace”), and Justice is even a popular name given to baby boys and girls. DC Comics’ Justice League of crime […]