E.D. Kain eagerly anticipates Mitch and Cam's wedding on "Modern Family," which won five Emmys on Sunday: I disagree that it’s unfortunate that Mitch and Cam aren’t married…yet. You see, I’m almost positive that during the show we’ll see the couple get officially, legally hitched. I’m not sure if this will follow the return of gay … Continue reading Modern Marriage
Despite Perry's unthinking support of executions, Toobin claims that capital punishment is on the way out: [T]he death penalty is withering, even in Texas. In the nineteen-nineties, juries in the United States handed down about three hundred death sentences per year; in 2010 there were only a hundred and fourteen. There were ninety-eight executions in 1999 and … Continue reading Is The Death Penalty On Life Support?
Alyssa Rosenberg posed the question and compiled responses. From Yashoda Sampath's contribution: In lit, if it doesn't drive a character or the story forward, then it's gratuitous. Period. If it's described in unnecessarily loving detail, it's gratuitous. How do you judge whether it meets those conditions? It differs from person to person.
by Zack Beauchamp Real-life Colombiana Lina Salazar is irked by the film premiering today: Colombiana’s title is a brazen attempt by Hollywood producers to capitalize on the decades-old reputation of a country that has made tremendous progress in recent years. It is a purely commercial strategy grounded in fantasy, not reality. And what producers don’t … Continue reading Not Colombiana
by Zack Beauchamp Tevi Troy is upset that the President's reading list is mostly fiction. Josh Barro takes his colleague to task. Alyssa Rosenberg thinks "condescending" is too nice a descriptor: President Obama, and any person who holds that office, consumes vastly more non-fictional material than the average American, and doesn’t even have the benefit … Continue reading No Novels For Obama
Alyssa Rosenberg cheers Huntsman's sojourn into sanity – as brave act of political suicide: As a rising generation of young evangelicals is less compelled by calls to discriminate against gay people but potentially remains fiscally conservative, Huntsman might be a plausible candidate several cycles down the line. But if he continues in this loose, improvisational … Continue reading Huntsman’s Great Opportunity Ctd
David Liss notices that popular culture no longer depicts magic as a learned art: Magic has gone from being an open system to a closed one. Their massive popularity make the Harry Potter novels and films the most glaring example, but it’s everywhere, and has been for decades now: TV shows like Charmed and Wizards … Continue reading The Rise Of Muggles
Anne Hathaway raps like Lil' Wayne: Via a perturbed Alyssa Rosenberg.
Alyssa Rosenberg fights the pop culture pressure for them to get married: I think it’s actively unhelpful to gay and straight men alike to perpetuate the idea that all same-sex roommates, be they puppet or human, must necessarily be a gay couple. Having close, affectionate friendships with another man doesn’t mean that you two are … Continue reading Leave Bert And Ernie Alone!
For the first time: Meet Miles Morales, a half-black, half-Hispanic American teenager who, inspired to do good after the death of Parker at the hands of the Green Goblin, takes flight and has his first fight in the pages of Marvel Comics' "Ultimate Fallout" No. 4, in comic shops on Wednesday. Alyssa Rosenberg thinks this … Continue reading Spiderman Is Not White
