The Chris Moeller Archives

The 2014 CM Blog "Cool List"

What's "cool" in the new year? If you're unsure, see below. Just missing the cut were Senator Mitch McConnell, Ben Bernanke, and Woody Allen.


Pussy Riot- Clever, angry, poised, courageous, and gorgeous. These dissidents of the Putin oligarchy, and victims of the modern Russian show trials, have been much more than one could have even dared hope as leftist global icons. They are the first annual coolest of the cool.

 

Edward Snowden- My generation's Daniel Ellsberg, but battling a more hostile and dangerous enemy.

 
Lupita Nyong’o- Hollywood is intimidated.

 
Kain Colter- The Northwestern University quarterback has led the movement to get college football players certified as union laborers by the National Labor Relations Board. It might mean the end of college sports as we know them, and wouldn’t that be terrific?

 
Boyd Crowder and Raylan Givens- Which one's cooler-- the morally ambivalent man in the black hat or the morally ambivalent man in the white hat? Shit, I still can't decide.


Malala Yousafzai- This 16-year-old is absolutely no joke.


Punitive traffic jams- I would have otherwise thought it was snow that caused me to be late to work this morning, but now I smell conspiracies from every crevice of civic life. Actually, Iowa governor Terry Branstad would never even think of engaging in this type of tomfoolery. He has a need for speed.


Heroin- First, that guy from Glee, now Philip Seymour Hoffman. Goodbye, crank. Heroin is back- and the suburbs got 'em!

 
King Dave- He's about to outlast Leno in the Carson slot. For the second time.

 
Justin Bieber- What, he doesn't have street cred now?


Ronan Farrow and his father- Look at these photos side-by-side and then tell me that Mia Farrow's son is not the progeny of Frank Sinatra, but rather Woody Allen. No way in hell. And in escaping the shame of being related to Allen, the kid has better timing than Sinatra belting out "I've Got You Under My Skin."

 
The Girl Scouts- Keep doin' your thing, girl scouts.


Al Jarreau- Always cool

posted by CM @ 8:16 PM