brendan halpin

If you work in higher ed, you’ve probably seen this article floating around recently. I read it and discussed it with my students, and I have some thoughts.

Here in the fascist USA, things are about to get a lot more expensive because our billionaire overlords are crashing the economy on purpose so they can buy up everything at bargain prices! You know, like the billionaires did in Russia!

Here in New England, our utility prices are set to skyrocket due to the fact that we get most of our energy from Canada. I’m sure there is similar bullshit on the way just about everywhere.

So everybody who’s not a billionaire is about to get a lot broker. And the tendency when you’re broke is to eat shitty food because it’s cheap. You can’t beat the price of instant noodles, but if you’re broke and working a lot you can’t stay fueled up on instant noodles. If you’re going to have any energy at all to resist fascism, you need to eat real food.

Here are some concrete tips to help you eat real food while being broke.

Dear [names redacted],

Hi. I have some questions for you. I’m too chicken to start a big conflict at a family get together, and of course the dynamic of white people gatherings (or maybe everyone’s, I don’t know) is that if I object to your politics in a public place, I’m being unreasonable and rude.

So I want to ask you here. Why do you hate me?

You know how you start watching a show and you think you know what kind of show it is but then it turns out to be something different? I love that. But then also, you know when you’re watching a cool show and the ending ruins the whole thing for you? I hate that.

Both things happened with Nine Perfect Strangers, in which a bunch of people go to a wellness retreat run by Nicole Kidman doing a Karma Chameleon Russian accent. (it comes and goes!)

What to do when the world falls apart? Watch horror movies, of course! I wrote about Ghoulies here, and apparently this kicked off a spree of Funny Little Guys Wrecking Stuff movies.

I am old enough that to have watched countries that once existed simply stop existing. I’m not talking about countries from my youth like Rhodesia and Zaire and Burma that changed names. I’m talking about countries that just stopped existing in the form in which I knew them: The USSR. East and West Germany. Yugoslavia. Czechoslovakia.

What a strange, beautiful, creepy movie this is!

A powdered, bewigged French nobleman gets stuck in the Serbian countryside and shelters with a family whose father comes back changed from a mission of revenge.

Last night I ventured to Deep Cuts in Medford to see Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol. Their most recent album is called Big Dumb Riffs, and, I mean, talk about delivering what’s on the label. It’s a really fun, gleefully stupid record.

Is there a better balm for the soul in troubled times than watching people get suplexed, dropkicked, and clotheslined? I think not!

In case you’ve missed it, Brookline resident/nepo baby Josh Kraft has filed paperwork to run for mayor of Boston.

Given that Kraft didn’t even own property in Boston until 2023 and seemed confused as to where he lived in campaign finance filings through the end of 2024, sometimes listing his Brookline address, sometimes listing his Boston address, it’s worth asking why he wants to be mayor of Boston.