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The Violent Legacy of Henry Shrapnel

Let’s cut to the chase. Yes, Henry Shrapnel is famous for exactly the thing you think he might be. Despite his name sounding like some war criminal relative of Jenna Maroney on 30 Rock, he is a very real person, with a very real and lethal effect on the world of war.

Shrapnel, of course, for anyone who’s just learning about the idea of both an explosion and the concept of war, is a term for the fragments and bits blown outward by an explosion — usually, horrible jagged things that would make a bullet seem like a blessing. It’s a noun that was invented, and became the unpleasant namesake, of the man who first weaponized them. 

This Classic ‘Simpsons’ Episode Plays A Lot Darker with a Late-Stage Capitalism Reinterpretation

Simpsons Twitter thinks that Hank Scorpio is scarily believable as an evil American CEO — good thing Elon Musk is South African.

Back in the so-called “Golden Age” of The Simpsons, the kind of cultural satire that typified the greatest animated comedy of all time was, itself, timeless, subtle and universal. That delicate dose of playful sarcasm coupled with the most incredible TV writing staff of its time created so many classic episodes that still hold up as mirrors American culture, as opposed to the kind of obnoxiously topical plot lines that currently make it to airtime — this past Simpsons Season 35 opener was an episode based around the hot-button issue of militarized policing that tackled the issue with all the tact and subtlety of a baton smashing into the audience’s skulls.

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