Category: Politics and Current Events
-
In the New York Times Magazine last weekend, David Gessner, author of Soaring With Fidel, weighed the pros and cons of teaching and writing, and teaching writing. Salon talks with Carmine Sarracino about our porn-saturated culture. Sarracino is co-author of The Porning of America. David Moore (The Opinion Makers) was on Greater Boston this Monday…
-
The literary world lost two vital voices last week: author David Foster Wallace and poet/poetry blogger Reginald Shepherd. Kottke has assembled a comprehensive links list for DFW memorials, although you could spend the day trolling through the thousands of blog posts reacting to his death. You can read Reginald Shepherd’s final poem, “God-With-Us,” on his…
-
Kathryn Joyce (whose book Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement will be released by Beacon this winter) compares the candidacy of Sarah Palin to the biblical story of Esther. The student loan credit crunch may just be a “convenient” distraction for lenders who would like to keep attention away from predatory lending practices, says Alan…
-
When the Republican Party nominated Sarah Palin for Vice-President of the United States, they (inadvertently?) reignited the mommy wars, that alleged antagonism between working mothers and stay-at-home moms. But this round of the war is Vietnam, not World War II, for there is no front line and no one can tell friend from foe.
-
As the mother of young adult with mental retardation, nothing should make me happier than a candidate for vice president vowing that my daughter would at last have a “friend and advocate in the White House.” Instead, I find myself more concerned than ever about the fate of children and adults with disabilities.
-
For many, Barack Obama’s birthplace, Hawaii, is the closest thing to paradise on earth. In fact, however, a perverted search for paradise led Western Europeans to conquer and colonize both North America and Hawaii. Unlike the colonizers of the last five hundred years, early Christians believed that the whole earth, including where they already lived,…
-
Amy Goodman and two producers of Democracy Now! (Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar) were arrested yesterday in St. Paul while covering the Republican National Convention for the show. All three have been released, but the video of Goodman’s arrest and reports of the rough treatment of Kouddous and Salazar are disturbing. Goodman served as…
-
Sometimes, you just can’t be cynical. Sometimes – even though you know that we still have a long way to go, that the work of achieving a racially just society is far from over, even though you don’t subscribe to the messianic fervor that sometimes surrounds talk of about this presidential campaign – sometimes you…
-
“To understand military sexual assault, let alone know how to stop it, we must focus on the perpetrators.” Helen Benedict on why soldiers rape. “To us sofa slouchers, these teen Olympians are heroes. But they have the nation’s pediatricians on edge.” A Baltimore Sun op-ed by Mark Hyman about young athletes. Also check out Hyman…
-
At the Root, Kai Wright discusses the hit black homeowners are taking in the mortgage foreclosure crisis, a topic he addressed earlier in this excellent article at The Nation. Kai has previously contributed to Beacon Broadside on gay teens and James Baldwin. David Moore deconstructs some sloppy NYTimes poll analysis on Obama and the racial…
