U.S. Armed Forces

Happy Inventors Day! 5 Musical Inventors to Celebrate

On this day in 1983, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed February 11 to be National Inventor's Day, and commanded the observation of same by all of us less awesome citizens. The day was chosen because it was the birthday of Thomas Edison, who held more than a thousand different patents, including pre ... More >>

Chris Kyle: Famous Sniper Murdered, And The Internet Blows Up

You might never have heard of Chris Kyle until this weekend, but he was known as America;s deadliest sniper for his work in Iraq and wrote a book titled American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History. The 38-year-old former Navy SEAL, had more than 150 confirm ... More >>

Capsule Stage Reviews: Memory House, The Mountaintop, Private Lives, Ubu Roi (King Ubu), The Young Man from Atlanta

Films of 2012: Ten Best Films of 2012

Just because you live in Houston doesn't mean you can't see all these films.

Why Psy and the Innocence of the Muslims Guy Are Nothing Alike

This meme has been infecting my Facebook newsfeed lately, and I thought I'd reply. The facts are these... Nakoula Basseley Nakoula spent a lot of his life making drugs, evading taxes, and commiting bank fraud, all acts that landed him in various institutions over the years. Because of the last frau ... More >>

Upcoming Events: Downtown Hoppy Hours and Italian Stallions

Everyone loves The Orange Show -- but the non-profit Center for Visionary Art needs your help to keep providing Houston with amazing public art displays like the annual Art Car Parade and concerts at the Orange Show monument itself. To that end, Saint Arnold is sponsoring the 2012 Foamraiser tomorro ... More >>

Two Choice Idiocies in the 2012 Texas GOP Platform

The 2012 Texas Republican Platform has been released, and reading briefly through it there is an interesting mixture of solid conservative thought, some common sense points, and at least two of what appears to be a complete and utter disconnect from even manufactured reality. As Houston Press's resi ... More >>

Don't Tread on Me: The Top 10 Musical Celebrations of American Might

Rock and pop music in the United States has earned a distinguished reputation for quality protest anthems and anti-war songs, from Country Joe and the Fish all the way up to friggin' Green Day. And that's great; it really is. Not only are many of the tunes timeless, but criticism of our society's m ... More >>

Obama's Mini-DREAM Act: Who Wouldn't Want These People As Citizens?

President Obama has thrown Republicans into a tizzy by having the Department of Homeland Security issue new guidelines, effective immediately, that put much of the defeated DREAM act into law. Obama announced that the following persons would be granted deportation waivers: People who came to the U. ... More >>

Progressive Forum Houston: Rachel Maddow

Celebrate Memorial Day with A Festive Fruit Pizza

Memorial Day is just around the corner. With my brother, a U.S. Marine (oorah!), currently back home from his first deployment in Afghanistan, the holiday is near and dear to my heart. Wanting to make something special to celebrate and honor all those who have served and who continue to serve in ou ... More >>

Ron Paul and Sci-Fi

WarBeast: Oh Fuck, They Have a Time Machine

It's a well-known fact that most band names are essentially gobbledygook, but here at Rocks Off we're trying hard to find meaning in the oddest monikers. Beth Burton​We try real hard to avoid metal bands here in the old What's in a Name? column. We still haven't forgiven Owl Witch for the abs ... More >>

The 6 Worst Air-Show Disasters: A Video Collection, Just In Time For Wings Over Houston

Things can go wrong​Next time you go to an air show, take a look at the fine print on the ticket. Besides the usual stuff about acts of God and "Promoter not responsible if the frontman doesn't show due to injecting Drano into his balls," there's something else. It says they're really, really ... More >>

“Ours to Fight For: American Jews in the Second World War”

The Michael Bay Movie Generator: 5 Easy Steps To Mega-Box Office Success

Insert as needed.​Some controversy, if you want to call it that, popped up this weekend over Michael Bay's apparent use of old footage from The Island in his latest release, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which grossed a staggering $400 million over the July 4th weekend. We can infer two ... More >>

Hot Stuff: Will The Texas Heat Melt Your Vinyl LPs?

Note: All temperatures in the following article are given in degrees Fahrenheit. Here is a helpful Celsius conversion calculator. ​You might not have noticed it lately, but outdoors, rays of this thing called "sunshine" are hitting the Earth like the planet didn't bring the Sun a sandwich wh ... More >>

Pop Rocks: By the Dumb's Early Light

Apu chose an alternate path to citizenship​There's a scene in The American President -- Aaron Sorkin's pre-West Wing exercise in wishful liberalism -- when President Shepherd (Michael Douglas) describes America as "advanced citizenship." It's a nice thought, especially in the fantastical conte ... More >>

Patrick Regan and Ximena del Pilar Echeverry Arias: Husband-Wife Team Arrested for Running Guns from Houston to Colombia

Dad, get me out of this one​A Houston-area couple has been charged with smuggling arms to Colombia, and a whole lot of weaponry was seized. Federal agents arrested Patrick Regan, 40, and his wife Ximena del Pilar Echeverry Aria, 25, who was a Colombian native, on Tuesday, prosecutors announce ... More >>

American Grocers

Samir Itani got rich sending expired food overseas to U.S. troops in the Middle East.

Remembering Our Friends, The Mujahideen

​Obama's Wars, Bob Woodward's new book about the President's management of the Afghanistan War, exposes some pretty significant divisions between Obama's civilian advisers and the U.S. military on strategy concerning what is now America's longest war: Book excerpts published yesterday sugges ... More >>

Captured in Afghanistan

American soldiers, vérité-style, in Restrepo.

Barry Walter Bujol Jr. of Hempstead: His Al-Qaeda Career Gets Nipped In The Bud

He'd received a book entitled 42 Ways of Supporting Jihad​A Hempstead man who told an undercover FBI officer he wanted "to travel overseas to fight in violent jihad for" Al-Qaeda was indicted today on charges of trying to help a terrorist organization.Barry Walter Bujol, Jr., 29, was arrested as h ... More >>

The Shameless Chef: Shit On a Shingle

Bonus points if you can guess which ingredients go into the "shit", and which go into the "shingle".​I don't know if the soldiers still eat "chipped beef on toast" in the U.S. military; we'd have to ask Craig Hlavaty, Rocks Off's resident ex-military running dog. However, they used to, with the di ... More >>

From Fort Hood To Iraq, The Army's Dealing With Stress-Related Fatal Incidents

​A lot of people were shocked by the shootings at Fort Hood. Should they have been?Rick Anderson of Village Voice Media takes a look at how the Army handles issues of soldiers under stress, including a sergeant from Texas man who shot up a clinic in Iraq. In many respects, Sgt. [John M.] Russell's ... More >>

Ask Not

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“Unite and Untie”

The new exhibit at the Houston Center for Photography sees the war in the Middle East in terms of people, not policies

Artist of the Week: Dem Southern Folkz

Poor Treatment of Returning Veterans

Don't Make Labor Day Weekend Plans...

Karina Nistal and Rebel Crew Rap for the Troops

Circle in the sand

Art Capsule Reviews

A picture of our opinions on local exhibitions

Art Capsule Reviews

A picture of our opinions on local exhibitions

No End in Sight

Breaking out of the pack of Iraq war docs, No End in Sight devastates

Transformers

As giant robots transform all around us (!), it's good to know Michael Bay won't ever change

Virtual Quagmire

The Army's realistic first-person shooter bogs down under fire

Bombs and Bikinis

Stealth aims low but hits its mark

Play "Free Bird"!

Using the Bob-O-Meter to rate cover songs

Made in Japan

The MFAH pays homage to an American's love of Eastern film

Books and Bullets

A gun shop and a school make great neighbors

Second Run

Celebrating the overachieving, underhyped movies of 2004

This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

Playbill

This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

Peace Through Art

"Made in Palestine" humanizes the Middle East conflict

An Evening of Torture

The Amnesty International production "Torture Watch" isn't out to entertain

Killing the Leaders

Mayoral Field of Dreams

If you pay them, they will come

News of the Weird

Killer

The bracing Licensed to Kill reveals the minds of hate criminals