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Is This Xfinity TV Spot the Best Rabbit Commercial . . . Evah?

The hardhopping staff here at the Global Worldwide Headquarters has long held the belief that pretty much everything we know about life, we learned from Bugs Bunny. Beyond his bravura performances in such illuminating tales as What’s Opera, Doc? and Monster Manicure, the many commercials Bugs has graced with his presence also contain life lessons for us all, as this collection from the 1960s…

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When a Nation Forgets Its Own Clichés ('Run Havoc' Edition)

From our That’s Just So Sad desk Here at the Global Worldwide Headquarters, the hardtsking staff  has long lamented the slow-motion decline of what used to be called “clear idiomatic English.” Unclear idiotmatic English is more like it nowadays. For one thing, when did single and singular become interchangeable, instead of retaining their discrete (not discreet) meanings. Also, why are people out…

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Dry Those Musketears! Xavier U Says 'We're Number 305!'

As an erstwhile Prince of the Queen City and semi-proud graduate of Xavier University (“Home of the Musketeers”), which I attended while doing a seven-year stretch in Ohio, I’ve long kept an eye on that bastion of Jesuit learning in Cincinnati. (Nutshell educational bio: For my first eight years I had the misleadingly named Sisters of Charity, followed by eight years of the Jesuits, followed by…

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Fenway Concession Workers to Boston Herald: Eat It

From our Local Dailies DisADvantage desk As you splendid readers likely have seen by now, Fenway Park’s concession workers went on strike today, just in time for the big weekend set between the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Boston Globe correspondent Yogev Toby filed this piece about an hour ago. Fenway Park concession workers walked off the job Friday ahead of a three-day series…

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Job Corps Students Are About to Get a Very Cruel Lesson

Driving around town yesterday, I heard this NPR piece by Maggie Ryan with Little Rock Public Radio about the senseless, soulless cutting of 90 federally funded Job Corps centers run by contractors across the country, which would end the program for 21,000 students and make some 20% of them homeless. The story brought to mind my own Job Corps experience back in the late ’70s, when I returned to…

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Town of Brookline's Latest Ban Is Truly a Coup de Foie Gras

The hardworking staff has been a (mostly) proud resident of the People’s Republic of Brookline for a (mostly) good 45 years, so we were understandably drawn to this item in Steph Solis and Mike Deehan’s always informative Axios Boston yesterday. It’s actually even more draconian than that, as Vivi Smilgius and Sam Mintz report in Brookline.News. On Wednesday, the town’s legislative body approved…

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C.J. Chivers Tracked Ukraine's Drone Warfare First - Up Close

The hardworking staff has long admired the journalistic work of New York Times reporter C.J. Chivers  (rhymes with shivers) during his years as a relentlessless war correspondent (Afghanistan, Libya, Syria), a tireless champion of military veterans, and – most recently – a firsthand witness to the drone war in Ukraine. That last topic is much in the news lately in the wake of this week’s stunning…

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Guess Who (Both?) Won the 2024 NYT 'Year in Pictures' Bakeoff

Among the many holiday traditions here at the Global Worldwide Headquarters of Campaign Outsider (duck the malls; do not bring me some figgy pudding), one of our favorites is the annual Running of the Photographers – that is, tallying the various photojournalists’ work in the New York Times special section, The Year in Pictures. In keeping with our Holiday Bakeoff tradition, the hardcounting…

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Xavier University Says 'We're Number . . . 500something!'

As I’ve mentioned previously in this space, I did seven years in Ohio from the late ’60s to the mid-’70s: A four-year stretch at Xavier University in Cincinnati, followed by an extended rehab stint after eight long years of Jesuit education. (Many of the gory details can be found here, but definitely not for the faint of heart.) Regardless, as a semi-proud Musketeer, back in 2020 I recorded…

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Is Babe Ruth's 'Called Shot' Jersey Really Worth $30 Million?

From our kissin’ cousin (Frog Division) at Ask Doctor Ads Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out. Dear Dr. Ads, There I was, minding my own business and leafing through the Weekend Wall Street Journal, when I came across an ad for a New York auction house offering “the Babe Ruth jersey worn during one of the most iconic moments in sports history” – the home run he…

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Dead Blogging 'Songs for Modern Japan' at MFABoston

Well the Missus and I trundled over to The Fens the other day to check out Songs for Modern Japan: Popular Music and Graphic Design, 1900–1950 (through September 2) and say, it was swell. “Songs for Modern Japan: Popular Music and Graphic Design, 1900–1950” explores how sheet music covers provide a window into Japanese society and culture during this period of immense transformation. Visitors…

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Dead Blogging 'The Lost Generation' at the McMullen Museum

Well the Missus and I trundled out to Chestnut Hill the other day for a second look at The Lost Generation: Women Ceramicists and the Cuban Avant-Garde (through June 2) at Boston College’s McMullen Museum of Art and say, it was just as swell this time. The Lost Generation: Women Ceramicists and the Cuban Avant-Garde examines the participants and artistic output from 1949 to 1959 of the Taller de…

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I Survived the Great Cincinnati CicadaPalooza of 1970

To borrow a phrase from former President Barack Obama, the news media is currently getting all wee-weed up about the coming cicada apocalypse this spring. Here’s how Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs defined the term to NPR’s Robert Siegel at the time (August of 2009, for those of you keeping score at home). SIEGEL: Gibbs defined getting wee-weed up as when people, and I quote, “get all nervous for no…

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Bill Belichick to Herald: We're on to Boston Globe

From our Local Dailies DisADvantage desk Former football coach Bill Belichick got lots of press coverage today for running this full-page ad on A3 of the Boston Sunday Globe. Here’s the text, for those of you keeping score at home. Nowhere in America are pro sports fans as passionate as in New England and for 24 years, I was blessed to feel your passion and power. The Patriots are the only NFL…

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'Images From a Weary World' Dominate NYT's Year in Pictures

As you splendid readers no doubt recall, an annual tradition at the Global Worldwide Headquarters is the Counting of the Photogs in the New York Times “Year in Pictures” special section published at the end of every December (previous photo finishes here). The Year in Pictures 2023 comes literally wrapped in human tragedy, with this image spanning the front and back  covers. “This woman was…

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Dead Blogging 'Fabricating Modernism' at the Currier Museum

Well the Missus and I trundled up to the Granite State over the weekend to check out the newly installed exhibits at Manchester’s Currier Museum of Art and say, they were swell. We started at Fabricating Modernism: Prints from the School of Paris (through January 7), which features artworks that “constitute a small portion of an extensive collection of prints committed to the Currier Museum of…

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Dead Blogging 'Mondrian: Foundations' at MFABoston

Well the Missus and I trundled over to The Fens the other day to catch Mondrian: Foundations at the Museum of Fine Arts (through April 28) and say, it was swell. In the years around 1900, before Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) created some of the most recognizable abstract canvases of the last century, he turned his eye to the characteristic sights of the Dutch landscape: canals, windmills, fields,…

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