Latest Posts
Have the Media Ignored the Sikh Shootings?
August 9th, 2012I’ll be honest: when I saw The Dark Knight Rises two days after the Aurora shooting, I was scared. The media’s unrelenting gaze, both then and since, has made the tragedy impossible to ignore. While agreeing such extensive coverage is justified, Huffington Post writer Riddhi Shah laments the comparatively modest attention the recent Sikh Temple shooting in Wisconsin has received.
Among major broadcast news stations, Shah notes, “only CNN was covering” the story the night of the attack. News was so scarce an Indian grocer Shah interviewed only found out “when people from India began calling.”
Why? Shah invites us to consider the possibility that media-coverage is ethno-racially skewed: “What if, instead of a white supremacist, the attacker had been a Muslim fundamentalist, and the place of worship a synagogue or a church? Would Fox News have aired a segment about a Latin American prison just hours after the shooting?”
New App from Obama Campaign isn’t all That Creepy
August 9th, 2012The Obama campaign released an app that searches for Democrats close by. It’s meant to help Obama supporters find likeminded believers as well as stay in touch with the campaign, but some find it just a little creepy.
The reality however, is that apps are part of canvassing in the 21st century.
Slogan-Wars: 2012 Presidential Edition
August 9th, 2012By transforming political positions into catchy, pocket-sized sayings, political slogans, from “I like Ike” to “Yes we can,” have often managed to infiltrate deeply into the American vocabulary. Come election day, candidates hope voters will side with their favorite mottos. There’s only one problem: as Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have learned, sloganeering is harder than it seems.
As Kelefa Sanneh of The New Yorker explains, before Obama’s “You didn’t build that” gaffe last month in Virginia, Romney’s best attempt was the markedly unremarkable “Believe in America.” Since, he’s been going with the much more pointed “We Built America.”
Obama’s campaign hasn’t been so fortunate.
Arnold Schwarzenegger Targets Partisan Politics
August 9th, 2012Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the President of the University of Southern California C. L. Max Nikias recently announced the establishment of The USC Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy. Their plan for the institute is to move past partisan bickering and actually solve policy problems.
As reported by Liz Dwyer for GOOD, the institute will use science and evidence to develop solutions to education, energy and the environment, the economy, health and political reform. This comes a fresh of breath air from the focus on gaffes and attack ads that surround politics today.
The Wait for Weed is (Maybe Close to) Over
August 9th, 2012Julian Brookes of Rolling Stone magazine has a densely-packed, crystal-clear message for readers in his article titled, Pot Legalization is Coming. Not like Godot or lunar habitations are coming; full-on smoke as you will freedom is nigh upon us. This just means a few unprecedented federal amendments, miles and miles of red tape and a host of drug-warrior politicians stand in the way. In other words: the usual.
