Category: The Dish

A round-up. Drum-Ponnuru to-and-fro here, here and here. Rare Ponnuru hissy fit:

Kevin Drum is either overthinking my post on stem cells, or not thinking enough. (His commenters are, as usual, idiots.)

Ooooh, snap.

A clean slate for SCOTUS? Your vegetables here.

Ron Paul makes GQ’s list. Next year: Sexiest Neo-Nazi Alive!

K-Lo posts like this one.

Ambers has the goods on Clinton’s sophisticated mailing effort.

He’s shocked at an omission; and has his own preferences.

"Whip It" is gaining in the Best-Worst category:

Vote here, here, and here. Vote early, often, and with padded shoulders.

Ron Paul gets endorsed by a brothel-owner in Nevada. No word on whether he is a neo-Nazi. Money quote:

"I’ll get all the Bunnies together and we can raise him some money. I’ll put up a collection box outside the door. They can drop in $1 dollar, $5 dollar contributions. What a great way for the working girls to support Ron Paul. It’s just the right thing to do."

A brilliant column from John Ellis.

Since it’s ’80s video week at the Dish, here’s a link to a blog of homage to Russell Mulcahy, a man who

practically pioneered the form – or should I say pioneered the form of the cheesy 80s video.

In his early career, Mulcahy worked with edgy pop acts like The Tubes (where he first gained notoriety producing their Grammy nominated long form video), XTC, the Vapors, the Human League, even the Stranglers (pictured, as moody pastors in "Duchess" – a harbinger of disturbing video imagery to come). However, his most famous early work is the over-played non-hit  "Video Killed the Radio Star", which explored every available video effect of 1979, but is mostly known for being the first video MTV ever played.

Mulcahy’s everything and the kitchen sink style came to help popularize the "new wave" aesthetic, and soon he was co-opted by the mainstream to do many of the defining videos of the decade. His iconic (and insanely gay) video for Elton John’s "I’m Still Standing" spearheaded an 80s Elton comeback, and he also directed such burned-in-your-retina videos as Duran Duran’s "Hungry Like the Wolf" (as well as most of their early videos), Kim Carnes’ "Bette Davis Eyes", Spandau Ballet’s "True", Rod Stewart’s "Young Turks", Billy Joel’s "Allentown", Fleetwood Mac’s "Gypsy", and in a more scandalous move, Berlin’s "Sex (I’m a…)".

A long and devoted exegesis of the "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" video follows. Look: I’m just linking, okay?