It’s unsettling when the particulars of violent incident fit so perfectly with the larger societal forces behind them. Such is the case with Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old kid walking home from a convenience store in Sanford, Florida, with candy, an iced tea, and a cell phone. He was confronted by George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old prototypical… Continue reading ‘Trayvon Martin, Fox and the History of White Resentment’
Among some very predictable messages and e-mails I got in response to Monday’s RedEye column, “Bieber is not a reading level,” I did get one e-mail with which I totally agree. A fellow RedEye reporter named Georgia wrote to me: Just wanted to let you know that I liked your column but felt you overlooked… Continue reading ‘Sifting Through the Response to ‘Bieber Is Not a Reading Level’’
I’m down in beautiful, underrated Cincinnati this week while I muse about how best to hitchhike a ride back to Chicago, staying with my wonderful friends Justin and Loren (“Publish This Book” fans will recall these two). They are married with two young boys and I gotta say, being a useless, mooching houseguest of two… Continue reading ‘I Love Staying With My Adult Friends’
As the “Hunger Games” film hits theaters this week, I have to vent for a second. Once—just once!—I would love it if someone would recommend a book to me that was not originally intended for a 14-year-old girl. Watching people read on the”L,”I can only conclude that adults have entirely given up reading anything not… Continue reading ‘Bieber Is Not a Reading Level’
It should come as no surprise that as a happy proponent of vulgarity, I don’t think there’s much point in TV, radio, newspapers and other media censoring language. Let’s focus on a specific case: the word to which my parents referred when I was very young as “the S-H word,” always warning me not to… Continue reading ‘You (Still) Can’t Say That on TV?’
I have a new favorite sexytime thought, which is Julianne Moore playing Sarah Palin. Let me just dwell on this for a second before launching into my thoughts on the HBO docudrama “Game Change” because Moore is one of those actresses who no adolescent male who ever saw “Boogie Nights” has been able to get… Continue reading ‘‘Game Change’ a Telling Political Guilty Pleasure’
Dear American Right-Wing, I’m confused. Let me just check and make sure I have this correct: we’re still doing the whole, Obama, the Radical Afro-centric Leftist thing? Like, you, Right Wing, you’re still on this whole fantasy that our President, Barack Obama, is secretly a radical socialist who can’t wait to give black people reparations?… Continue reading ‘So We’re Still Doing the Whole ‘Obama, the Radical’ Thing?’
This weekend saw the largest tornado outbreak for the month of March on record with 279 tornado warnings issued and at least 38 people killed. Entire towns were ripped out of the ground across Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Alabama, and Georgia following Illinois’s outbreak days earlier. Without a doubt we have not seen the end of… Continue reading ‘Tornado Outbreaks Will Only Get Worse’
With Super Tuesday a kind of Romney-leaning wash, it appears as if the Republican field will march forward on their snipe hunt. Even though I still think it’s mostly inconceivable that Romney won’t be the nominee, I’m done predicting anything about this cluster. Well, except for this: there’s been a lot of chatter in political… Continue reading ‘There Will Be No ‘White Knight’ for the Republican Field’
This may be an unpopular point of view, but why exactly was everyone clamoring for Rush Limbaugh to apologize? I don’t understand. When he called Sandra Fluke, advocate of expanded access to birth control, a “slut” and a “prostitute” he got exactly what he wanted which was wall-to-wall media coverage. Both the “mainstream” and progressive media… Continue reading ‘Why Should Rush Apologize?’