Monday links this time around.

Salon has kicked off a series of interviews with former “Saturday Night Live” cast members. The first participant is Nora Dunn, who had a strong run with a rather controversial end during that fantastic late 80s period.

Nora Dunn: “SNL is a traumatic experience. It’s something you have to survive”

I trust I’ll be sharing more of these as the series continues.


I know several of you have seen this already, as it popped up several times on my Facebook feed, but it’s an excellent reminder that not everything you read on the Internet is true.

Yvette d’Entermont, an actual scientist, takes down Vani Hari, who rails against perceived toxins under her nom de Internet The Food Babe.

I think it also points out how difficult it can be to sift out fact from fiction on the Internet. How are regular people supposed to know whether someone is full of shit, as d’Entremont puts it? Sometimes things aren’t as cut-and-dried as in this case, where Hari seems to be pulling stuff out of her ass, and regular folks with job and families and no background in science may have a harder time figuring out whether some “new breakthrough” in health or medicine or how to protect the environment is true or just a waste of time.

The “Food Babe” Blogger Is Full of Shit


A couple college basketball links to close out the season.

First, a fine look back at the last time Duke won a national championship in Indianapolis, and how close they came to losing.

Some friends of mine and I have a frequent saying we share via text whenever something big happens in a game: “WAKE THE KIDS!!!!” Not as in go physically wake up your kids because something incredible happened. But, rather, scream and yell with abandon knowing you’re likely to wake the kids.

Anyway, had Gordon Hayward’s shot gone in, that may have been the ultimate wake the kids moment.

3 inches from the greatest basketball story ever told

Next, The Big Lead’s Jason Lisk watched some Final Four games from the 1970s to see how different basketball really was back then. Some interesting observations, the biggest being that lacking a shot clock did not seem to slow the game down. While that was apparently true in the ‘70s, it’s worth remembering that college basketball had largely ground to a halt a few years later. Games in the 30s and 40s weren’t terribly uncommon in the early ‘80s as teams held the ball once they grabbed a lead.

NCAA Basketball is as Awful (or Wonderful) as It Was Four Decades Ago


Adam Horovitz is trying to figure out what to do with himself in the post-MCA part of his life. As author Zach Baron warns up front, this comes across as pretty damn sad.

The Ad-Rock Retirement Plan


This goes way out of bounds of the things I normally share here. But given how many of us have kids that are approaching puberty, it’s probably a good thing for many of us to read.

Julie Metzger is changing the way we talk to our kids about sex. That seems like a good thing to me.

Let’s Talk (Frankly) About Sex


Finally, another reprint of an absolutely epic sports profile from the 1970s. This is Steve Olney’s profile of then Atlanta Hawks coach Hubie Brown for the Atlanta Journal & Constitution Magazine.

This is a relatively obvious statement, but no way could an NBA coach get away with saying the things Hubie said back in 1979.

“It’s Okay If You’re A Machine”: Inside Hubie Brown’s Brutal Philosophy