“Doonesbury” creator Garry Trudeau smiles as he enters a classroom to speak to students at the Center for Comic Studies in White River Junction, Vt., Monday, Oct. 22, 2007. Credit: Toby Talbot/AP Satire has been a part of American discourse for ages, from controversial skits about the Vietnam War during “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” […]
Birth control pills. Credit: brains the head/Flickr (cc by-nc-nd) On NBC’s “Meet the Press” this week, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan said one of the big problems with discourse in America is “the way women are being spoken of” in public regardless of political party lines. Noonan’s observations along with the recent contraception health […]
Credit: Photo by Michele Markel Connors via Flickr Creative Commons Santa Monica College has introduced a new controversial way to help its struggling finances. In what could be a first in the nation, it will offer two-tier course pricing – after regular, $36-per unit classes fill up, in-demand classes will open up at a cost […]
The Mayor’s choice for LAPD Chief, Charlie Beck Credit: David McNew/Getty Images The last month has been a busy one for the Los Angeles Police Department’s Chief Charlie Beck, especially when it comes to issues of the four-wheeled sort. A group of LAPD motorcyle officers are set to go through with a lawsuit filed last […]
Jumped In: What Gangs Taught Me About Violence, Drugs, Love And Redemption by Jorja Leap Jorja Leap is a gang expert and professor of social welfare at UCLA. She has transformed hours of orals histories and interviews with gang members, interventionists, police officers, parents and victims into an ethnography of gang culture in Los Angeles. […]
The “Salone dei Cinquecento”, in Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. Credit: Photo by Eusebius@Commons via Flickr Creative Commons How many long-lost art masterpieces have been painted over or hidden from view? UC San Diego researchers in Florence, Italy announced Monday they’ve found clues to the fate of Leonardo da Vinci’s lost “The Battle of Anghiari,” which the […]
A truly inhuman WiFi hot spot. Credit: Viakenny/Flickr (cc by-nc-nd) Every year in March, hundreds of thousands of music fans, musicians, bloggers, film crews and the corporate dollars that follow them ascend onto the streets and clubs of Austin, Texas for the South By Southwest Music Festival. Just as the influx of temporary citizens can […]
US army soldiers of Task Force 3-66 Bravo Company of 172 Infantry Brigade walk towards the Forward Operating Base (FOB) Kuschamond on September 12, 2011 in Kuschamond, Paktika province. Credit: JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images As the world reacts to news of an allegedly lone American soldier going off base and killing 16 Afghan civilians early Sunday […]
Popcorn, 2010. Credit: Kathleen Cavalaro/Flickr A Michigan man is fed up with the cost of popcorn and concessions at the movie theater and has decided to do something about it. He isn’t bringing his own snacks (he tried that, but the theater prohibits it) or refraining from buying popcorn in protest; he’s filing a class-action […]
Col. William N. Selig: The Man Who Invented Hollywood Credit: By Andrew A. Erish One of the least-known figures in movie history is Colonel William Selig, who as early as 1890’s was deeply involved in the pioneering art form of cinema. Selig began his show-biz career as proprietor of a string of all-Black traveling minstrel […]
