DOMA
DOMA instructs all federal officials, and indeed all persons with whom same-sex couples interact, including their own children, that their marriage is less worthy than the marriages of others.
Detropia on PBS
A documentary on the fall of Detroit.
Cartoonists against gun violence
A surprisingly affecting video.
“Not the American way”
Gabrielle Giffords on yesterday’s Senate vote.
Thank you, Senator Kirk
“I’d say that the times, they are a-, &c., but I think that the times have already changed, and people are now catching up.”
TAL at Harper High School
Chicago’s Harper High School is the subject of two episodes of This American Life.
Goodbye, Muzak
“Listening to Muzak, late on, say, a Thursday night, straightening up a badly-lit, customer-free aisle of ironing boards and clothespins and clothespin bags: no wonder I fancied myself an existentialist.”
Rosa Parks stamp
Coinciding with her centenary.
Gospel of Intolerance
Money donated by American evangelicals helps to finance a violent antigay movement in Uganda.
Inauguration Day
“The most remarkable moment for me was the reference to Seneca Falls, Selma, and Stonewall, joining three movements into one ongoing struggle for human rights and the widening we of ‘we the people’ — the phrase that served as the kernel of the president’s address.”
The End of the Trail
December 31 is the end of the 2012 trail. Where Route 66 ends is a more complicated question.
Senator Feinstein’s bill
“Here, from Senator Dianne Feinstein’s website, is a fairly detailed description of an assault-weapons bill that has been under development for more than a year.”
December 14, 2012
The president needs to lead.
Margie King Barab and Marlene Dietrich
Our friend Margie King Barab is now online, and today she tells the story of how she came to meet Marlene Dietrich.
November 11, 1922
Armistice Day.
Why save PBS?
A poster from PBS.
Beloit Mindset List, 2034 edition
“Clint Eastwood has always been a vulgar old man.”
Restorative v. retributive justice
Re: Norway.
Mitt Romney, soaking in it
It’s called white privilege, and Governor Romney, you’re soaking in it.
Recently updated
Todd Akin’s theorizing about rape and pregnancy dates back at least to the late thirteenth century.
The Beloit Mindset List, again
In my lifetime, Bix Beiderbecke, Emily Dickinson, Juan Gris, and Fats Waller have always been dead. And the point is — what?
Living in the Middle Ages
I think that Todd Akin is living in the Middle Ages.
Sex and the Office
Helen Gurley Brown’s sequel to Sex and the Single Girl: some feminism.
Too early again
In the aftermath of the shootings in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, it seems that once again it is too early to begin a discussion of gun-ownership rights.
The cultural bed
From 1957.
Woody Guthrie centennial
His songs were made for you and me.
At last
I am happy to see President Obama on the right side of history, at last.
Rice and beans à la Hannity
Sean Hannity echoes The Grapes of Wrath.
Jeffrey Toobin on the ACA
A clear exposition of the arguments concerning the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.
The Snatchel Project
“If they have their own, they can leave ours alone!” Possibly NSFW.