Meet The Only Woman With Her Name On An Official Declaration Of Independence
There is just one woman whose name appears on an official copy of the Declaration of Independence— Mary Katharine Goddard. Goddard, a 38-year-old publisher and patriot, was printing the Maryland...
View ArticleGoing To The Mats For Free Speech Sometimes Means Letting Trolls Go Unpunished
It’s a classic Internet argument. “This is a danger to free speech!” “No, it’s not! The government isn’t shutting anyone up!” I’ve got good news. Both can be right. There are plenty of things that...
View ArticleHow The Viral Facebook GIF Game Got Me Thinking About The Meaning Of Life
“The question, O me! so sad, recurring — What good amid these, O me, O life?” — Walt Whitman A viral Facebook game got me feeling pretty existential this week. Long has humankind cried out to the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How To Decode The Symbolism In This Irish Mom’s Spoof Of Beyonce’s Photoshoot
Every single move Beyonce makes is lavishly praised, studied, interpreted, and imitated. Just as surely as England experienced the Victorian era, we are in a Beyonceic era, named of course, for our own...
View ArticleNew DOJ Rules Increasing Civil Asset Forfeiture Are An Exercise In Swamp Filling
The Trump administration announced a rule this week intended to increase and encourage federal civil asset forfeiture. The Department of Justice directive comes against a backdrop of a nationwide trend...
View ArticleRep. Steve Scalise Released From Hospital, Begins Rehabilitation
Six weeks after he was shot on an Alexandria baseball field, Rep. Steve Scalise has been discharged from the hospital. The Louisiana congressman’s office tweeted a statement saying he “has made...
View ArticleTo Media And GOP Leadership, Some Obamacare Victims Matter More Than Others
In the debate over Obamacare, which came to a legislative impasse as ignominious as its origin last night, there’s a tendency of Obamacare supporters to dismiss or denigrate the victims of the...
View ArticleThis Vanity Fair Lionization Of The Press Is Why Everyone Hates The Press
The Trump presidency has made newspapers great again. That’s the thesis of a long “Vanity Fair” feature on the competition and current fortunes of America’s foremost newspapers, the Washington Post and...
View ArticleLena Dunham, Reporting People To Authorities For Disagreeing With You Is...
This week, famous millennial journaler Lena Dunham was strolling through an airport eavesdropping on a couple of flight attendants. There she was, just a right-thinking individual with fluency in...
View ArticleTrump TV Is Just A Less Artsy Version of Obama’s West Wing Week. Why Is...
The Trump administration debuted a new video product from Trump Tower this week. Starring Lara Trump, Eric Trump’s wife, and former CNN Commentator Kayleigh McEnany, “Trump TV” touted good economic...
View Article‘The Great Comet’s’ Broadway Flame-Out Shows A Single-Minded Drive For...
It was an unlikely theatrical success— a musical about the middle section of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”— but Dave Malloy’s mash-up of indie rock and Russian folk music made it to Broadway in 2016, four...
View ArticleDurham Police Took Pictures While Protesters Vandalized. Seattle Police Think...
Let’s start with a review of the basics. Racists, and others with repugnant views, have a right to be repugnant and express those views in public in this country. We protect their right to free speech...
View ArticleDon’t Let The Internet Bully You Into Picking Online Signaling Over Offline...
At the risk of having my absence interpreted as Nazi sympathy, I’ve stayed away from most social media this week. After all, my silence is acquiescence, I’m told. My attempts to stay above the online...
View ArticleDo You Think PETA’s Mad Everyone’s A Troll Now?
This week, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals offered a custom anti-hunting frame for Facebook profile photos. “Shoot Selfies, Not Animals,” it read, with a majestic buck silhouette and a PETA...
View ArticleJ.J. Watt’s Crowdfunding Effort For Houston Tops $4 Million With $1 Million...
J.J. Watt, the Houston Texans’ charismatic defensive end, has shown again in the wake of Hurricane Harvey what makes him popular with many NFL fans, regardless of team allegiance. A Wisconsin native,...
View ArticleSix Other Things Verrit Will Feature That Are Unrepresented in Media
Former Clinton aide Peter Daou announced a news start-up over the weekend. Formed with his wife Leela, Verrit is marketed as a platform for 65.8 million Americans who voted for Hillary Clinton, “an...
View ArticleJ.J. Watt’s $30 Million Harvey Haul Is Everything Great About America, The...
J.J. Watt has raised, technically speaking, a mind-blowing amount of money since he started an online fundraising campaign for Hurricane Harvey victims the week the storm hit. Watt has raised so much...
View ArticleHarvard Withdraws Fellow Title For Chelsea Manning After Public Protest From...
Harvard’s Institute of Politics announced late last night convicted felon Chelsea Manning will not be a Visiting Fellow at the university this fall after two pillars of the national security community...
View ArticleAfter My Husband’s Death, I’m Learning To Steward The Light He Left Behind
When you lose someone, you go through a lot of metaphors. Our vocabulary falters in the face of death. Today is the two-year anniversary of the death of my husband, Jake. It took me about a year to...
View ArticleRep. Steve Scalise Returns To Congress After Attack, Gunshot Wound: ‘I’m An...
Rep. Steve Scalise made his comeback to the U.S. House of Representatives Thursday. He entered the chamber to a standing ovation from colleagues, using two canes and wearing royal blue tennis shoes...
View Article