Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
When Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination on July 13, he peppered his 34-minute speech with a laundry list of deeply conservative policy prescriptions. Among them was a requirement — much like the one in the state budget he signed less than 24 hours before the event — that welfare recipients…
The concept and practice of disrupting a formal occasion with a protest always seemed awkward to me, not just for the people being disrupted but for the protesters as well. Generally, I think, there’s a tendency for this form of protest to make the activists involved look unserious. On the extreme end of the spectrum,…
Once again, a flag has become a symbol of division. Less than a month after a massacre in Charleston by a white supremacist spurred nationwide debate over the Confederate flag, another mass shooting has fueled spurious flag rumors and spawned criticism of President Obama. On Tuesday, the president ordered all American flags on federal grounds to…
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Tuesday gave out fellow candidate Sen. Lindsey Graham‘s (R-S.C.) personal cellphone number in retribution for the senator calling him a “jackass.”During a campaign event at the University of Pennsylvania, Trump, the blustering businessman who is leading in GOP primary polls, read out a number that begin with the D.C. area…
Photo Credit Eleanor Taylor The National Park Service has a cautious, sensible policy that allows parks to ban the sale of plastic water bottles. Those that do so are required to provide easily accessible filling stations at which visitors can replenish their own containers — or fill reusable bottles sold at park concessions — with…
“A troll,” according to one definition, “is a person who sows discord … by starting arguments or upsetting people … with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.” The goal of the troll is to provoke a reaction by any means necessary. Trolls thrive in…
How’s this for a surprise? Louisiana, where abstinence-only sex ed is mandatory and schools are actually forbidden by law from teaching about contraception and STDs, has the cities with the highest and second-highest STD infection rates in this great nation of ours. Cosmopolitan New Orleans is actually #2 in that competition, with the top prize…
A liberal activist blogger conference apparently interrupted Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley. I wasn’t there and didn’t really follow the rabid tweeting, but got the gist that it was because these candidates ignore Black issues. I went looking for more comprehensive subsequent coverage and found some hilarious stuff, specifically around Bernie Sanders. Let us review….
Anybody who spends time in a car or bus in Manhattan knows that traffic congestion isn’t getting better and, indeed, may be getting worse. The average daytime speed of cars in Manhattan’s business districts has fallen to just under 8 miles per hour this year, from about 9.15 miles per hour in 2009. City officials…
When one writer suggested that guns can be regulated without anyone’s rights being infringed, he lost his job. Dick Metcalf told his story this morning to a skeptical crowd. Lisa Roe/Flickr We noticed that you have an AD BLOCKER ENABLED Please consider disabling it for our site, or supporting our work in one of these…