Even Kitchenmaids Get the Blues
Downton Abbey is the best show on television this year, is it not? Or at least, it has the best frocks and hats on television at the moment (sorry Mad Men, you’re so whatever year it was that...
The Bloody London Olympics: The Social Cost of Benefit Cuts
The UK has entered a lethal age of austerity, right in time for the 2012 Summer Olympics. As elite athletes from all over the world to descend upon London to compete in the most-watched sporting...
Content creators vs carriers: The Dish/AMC dispute
Disclosure: I work for the Sundance Channel, an AMC property. On 1 July, Dish Network subscribers looking for the Sundance Channel, AMC, WE, IFC, and more had to look elsewhere—because an ongoing...
Review: Cosmopolis
The grin on Eric Packer’s limo is 50,000miles wide. And why wouldn’t it be? His limo is bullet proof, bomb proof and future proof. He’s a billionaire investor rocking the fly honey heiress and...
Aaron Sorkin and New Media: Why Newsroom Rings Hollow
The pilot of The Newsroom on HBO was an artistic, factual, and an ideological failure, and critics are not responding favourably. Particularly young critics in new media, the very content management...
Anne Marie Slaughter, Feminism, “Having it all” and Human Rights
Anne-Marie Slaugther’s recent article in The Atlantic, “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All,” has come under much criticism this week for ignoring the needs and priorities of poor women,...
Acting Up in Uganda: An Interview with “Call Me Kuchu” co-directors Katherine Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worrall
Recently racking up awards from the Berlin Film Festival to Toronto’s Hot Docs, Katherine Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worrall’s “Call Me Kuchu,” which follows a group of Ugandan LGBTI...
Attacking the Most Vulnerable: General Assistance Benefit Cuts in the U.S.
In 2009, Britain started facing a series of severe benefits cuts targeting older Britons as well as members of the disabled community. Outraged, people took to the streets, including those who had...
True Blood: Time for the True Death?
My response thus far to the fifth season of True Blood on HBO has been one of overwhelming ennui. The show appears to have long-ago passed its ‘use by’ date, and right now it’s skulking in the...
BBC’s Sherlock, Asperger’s Syndrome, and Sociopathy
As awareness of autism spectrum disorders, such as Asperger’s syndrome, in adults increases, characters with autistic traits are becoming increasingly common in television and other media....