MEDIA: Finally, Long Form Charticles!

Click HERE to enlarge REUTERS: If you’re the nautical sort, you probably interpret the news as a flow. If you hunt and peck on the typewriter, your news feed might resemble a pointillistic painting. But if you love to break ideas down into their sequential components, keep your socks folded and sorted by color in a dresser, compose everything you write with an outliner and consider a pair of tweezers a blunt instrument, then you probably view the news through the schematic eyes of Hilary Sargent, the creative force behind the ChartGirl website. Since November, Sargent has been sorting and […]

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CINEMA: I Was A Teenage Gorehound

  BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Slaughter Tales — a feature-length horror movie written/directed by/starring a then-fourteen-year-old South Philly filmmaker Johnny Dickie — changed the way I look at movies. Let me explain: In the mid-1980s, during the rise of the video store, a film lover would be giddy about the freshly-bloomed reality of being able to watch films you would never see on TV or at your local theaters. I was in college studying film at the time, so it was an opportunity to see for the first time classics from Fritz Lang, Buster Keaton and Stanley Kubrick. Being […]

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50 Years Ago This Month Rev. Martin Luther King Wrote ‘A Letter From A Birmingham Jail’ That Would Change The Course Of American History

  CONSTITUTION DAILY: The “Letter” was King’s answer from his jail cell to eight white clergymen, among the most prestigious clergy in the state of Alabama, all racial moderates, who had condemned the protests roiling that city of fierce racism and branded King an extremist. The “Letter” was his relentless rebuttal. Defending the protests and arguing for the fierce urgency of now, he parsed and parried in the most varied ways. Taking his white readers on a tour of the inner recesses of black hurt, he appealed to pathos black hurt (“when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of […]

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BOOKS: Being David Sedaris

  FRESH AIR: David Sedaris writes personal stories, funny tales about his life growing up in a Greek family outside of Raleigh, N.C., about in Santa’s workshop at Christmastime, and about living abroad with his longtime partner, Hugh. The stories have appeared on This American Life and in The New Yorker, and have now filled seven essay collections, including Me Talk Pretty One Day, Naked, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and now — his latest collection — Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls. Because Sedaris’ writing relies so heavily on his own life, it’s not surprising that many of […]

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ECON: Grad Student Pounds Stake Of Truth Through The Heart Of The Austerity Vampires

  THE GUARDIAN: In 2011 Congress was engaged in a bitter battle over the direction of the US economy; a group of them seemed ready to default on the nation’s debt and shut down the government, if necessary, to win their point: that the growing federal deficit would endanger America’s economy for generations to come. Others were unconvinced. The stalemate brought Washington to a standstill on the issue. During this tense period, there was an important meeting. Nearly 40 Senators sat in neat rows to hear a presentation on debt from Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff, two economists with faultless […]

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ALWAYS REMEMBER: Those Who Forget Idiocracy Are Doomed To Repeat It

  WASHINGTON POST: George W. Bush will return to the spotlight this week for the dedication of his presidential library, an event likely to trigger fresh public debate about his eight fateful years in office. But he reemerges with a better public image than when he left Washington more than four years ago. Since then, Bush has absented himself from both policy disputes and political battles. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll suggests that the passage of time and Bush’s relative invisibility have been beneficial to a chief executive who left office surrounded by controversy. Days before his second term […]

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BOOK REVIEW: Anne Carson’s Red Doc<

  BY BRANDON LAFVING The word ‘poetry’ still elicits romantic images in ye average reader. But don’t rush to vest thyself in a Victorian bustle and/or chastity belt after reading the poetry herein. Anne Carson’s newest book of poems, Red Doc> gives graphic voice to all the sexuality, longing and despair that occurs in between the lines of ancient Greek tragedy. Yea, that’s pretty Fucking Intense, capitals intended. This new work continues the saga begun in her Autobiography in Red, which heretically recast the ancient Greek tale of Geryon and Hercules in a contemporary setting. Traditionally, the tale told of […]

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WORTH REPEATING: The Answer Is ‘No’

  WASHINGTON POST: Iverson stood during a divorce proceeding in Atlanta in 2012 and pulled out his pants pockets. “I don’t even have money for a cheeseburger,” he shouted toward his estranged wife, Tawanna, who then handed him $61. The scene showed a stark side of a man who had captivated crowds, pushed boundaries, and became one of the NBA’s biggest stars. He did things his way, on his schedule, speaking honestly during news conferences and snubbing the professional sports establishment. Crowds connected with Iverson, who’d succeeded despite physical limitations and mistakes, such as a felony conviction at 18 for […]

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