Review: Downton Abbey, Season Two
The second season of Downton Abbey returns to US airwaves this weekend, just in time for the seven households that haven’t torrented it yet. The British import has turned out to be an unexpected...
Month: December 2011
Review: Doctor Who Christmas special
Doctor Who fans around the world were far more interested in the landfall of this year’s Christmas special, ‘The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe,’ than they were in the progress of NORAD...
Slumming: Consuming misery on reality TV
I have been in rickety condemned buildings that it was absolutely dangerous to go through! Found six families living in one miserably ventilated cellar—24 persons, 16 of them adults, living in the...
Why does the media still refer to “Bradley” Manning? The Curious Silence Around a Transgender Hero
One of the most persistent threads throughout the two years of imprisonment of accused Wikileaks leaker Private Bradley Manning has been the rumour that he is in fact, she--a transgender woman....
Evicted from Tahrir Square, a New Stage of Egyptian Protest Begins
On Friday, the headlines read that Tahrir Square was burning. Soldiers and military police raided the square in an unprecedented bout of violence and brutality, firing weapons and using batons and...
ABC’s entry in the Heartwarming Holiday Special Olympics: “You Deserve It!”
ABC’s entry in the Heartwarming Holiday Special Olympics this year is You Deserve It, a game show where contestants enter to win fabulous cash prizes...for someone other than themselves. Entrants...
Is Department of Justice Action on Voter Suppression Too Little, Too Late?
The 2008 Obama campaign’s brilliance when it came to grassroots organising and get out the vote campaigns clearly terrified the right, which has responded with a campaign to eradicate voting rights...
Toneelgroep Amsterdam: Hedda Gabler outshines The Miser
Who knew Ibsen had a canine following in Holland? I thought as I stood in line at the Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam directly behind a woman carrying a small dog in her purse. I was there to see...
Gendering Fairy Tales: Or, the Difference Between Grimm and Once Upon a Time
In the world of books, changing the gender of the protagonist apparently changes the genre; if it’s a woman, it’s chick lit, if it’s a man, it’s literary fiction. This trend can be seen...
Is Europe finally giving up on the illusion of democratic representation?
There is hunger in Europe. For the first time since World War II, this hunger and extreme poverty is not limited to pockets of exclusion in Eastern nations but running across the continent. Greece,...