If you only read one thing today, make it this. Scott Fujita of the Cleveland Browns reflects on what it means in a society when some people are regarded as “less than” others. A snip: I support marriage equality for so many reasons: my father’s experience in an internment camp and the racial intolerance his family experienced during and after
Read moreNewt Gingrich addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference today and, as is his habit, had some interesting things to say. This session doesn’t seem to have been as much fun as the 500 Racist Hillbilly Over the Top Rope Battle Royale we had yesterday, but credit the far right with understanding the value of offering up a diversity in its entertainment,
Read morePart 5 in a series. Once upon a time there was Def Leppard and Motley Crue and Skid Row. Then this video happened and that, as they say, was that.
Read morePart 4 in a series. It sometimes seemed like MTV in the 1990s was little more than a video résumé for one Adam Spiegel, aka Spike Jonze. He seemed to be the guy directing all the damned videos, and some of the era’s most inventive concepts were his. Here’s a sample. Up first, let’s watch some television. Like, that time when
Read moreTo announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. ― Theodore Roosevelt On March 10, 2003, at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire theatre in London, Natalie Maines stepped to the microphone and said this:
Read morePart 2 in a series. The Reagan/Thatcher years were marked by an utterly bizarre shiny/happy pastel sheen spread liberally across a decidedly apocalyptic doom. Listen to songs like “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” and “Forever Young” and “It’s a Mistake” (and watch the videos). The aesthetic seemed to be “we’re all going to die in a nuclear holocaust, of
Read moreIf you haven’t yet seen Mark Hurst’s piece on Google Glass over at Creative Good, you need to. You really, really need to. A lot of times cool new gadget and service roll-outs mainly just affect the manufacturers and the people with the cash to buy them. Sure, there can be collateral damage – World of Warcraft widows, for instance –
Read moreThere’s a new petition going around – maybe you’ve seen it on Facebook. It points up our growing rich-poor gap and asks Congress to cap CEO pay, which is obscene in many cases. The ratio of CEO pay in the United States has ballooned to 380 times that of the average worker. Pass legislation to limit the salary of CEOs
Read moreThis is hardly the first time pro wrestling has come at the audience with a blatantly racist angle, and WWE has, through the years, perfected the arts of cheap stereotyping and jingoism. So their latest gimmick – the anti-immigration “real American” Jack Swagger and his mentor, thinly veiled Tea Partier Zeb Colter – are hardly news. Except for one thing
Read moreIt’s been an interesting few days. The American Benefits Council and 278 employers, organizations and municipalities have filed a friend of the court brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in a case regarding the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Earlier today the far right Drudge Report was linking to a story outlining a new study that suggests gay marriage may
Read moreI am not anti-gun. I am, however, anti-NRA, which isn’t pro-gun so much as it is the advocacy wing of the arms dealer industry. Anyway, the organization has now released a compilation of National Organizations With Anti-Gun Policies (aka an enemies list). In their words: The following organizations have lent monetary, grassroots or some other type of direct support to anti-gun organizations.
Read moreI … I … ummm. This is a joke, right? Marriage should be limited to unions of a man and a woman because they alone can “produce unplanned and unintended offspring,” opponents of gay marriage have told the Supreme Court. By contrast, when same-sex couples decide to have children, “substantial advance planning is required,” said Paul D. Clement, a lawyer
Read moreEvery good recipe for deception begins with an ounce of truth. Whoever is managing the current public relations crisis facing the National Rifle Association clearly understands this fundamental principle. In the days since the tragic shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, the NRA has offered a textbook execution of the crisis communication playbook, employing everything from ducking
Read moreWe have heard, over the last 24 hours, all kinds of comment on the tragic shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. Predictably, much of the public response has taken the form of outrage over the broad availability of the weaponry used in these murders, to say nothing of other high-profile mass killings in places like Aurora, Colorado.
Read moreEver since FOX called Ohio for Obama last Tuesday night (touching off a near-hysterical conniption from Karl Rove), talk of secession has been rampant. Groups in all 50 states have started petitions aimed at leaving the Union, with Texas (predictably) reaching the minimum threshold of signatures first. We’ve written about secession here at S&R a good bit, with Frank Balsinger’s piece
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