Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
There has been a sudden spike recently in expressions of racism in French public life—one that has provoked a national debate and may lead to legal action this week. It began last month, when a candidate for the right-wing National Front likened Christiane Taubira, the Justice Minister, who is black, to a monkey, pairing…
The recent attack on Charlie Hebdo, a weekly satirical French newspaper featuring acerbic cartoons and comics, is shocking. Twelve people are dead, 11 injured. These attacks threaten the freedom of the press. But the media’s response has been troubling. Coverage lionizes Charlie Hebdo as an institution, while also taking advantage of the cartooning community. Charlie…
Dean Baquet calls Marc Cooper an ‘asshole’ for posting a ‘thoughtless and arrogant’ note Posted on Facebook In another comment on his Facebook wall, USC Annenberg journalism professor Marc Cooper writes: “You just happen to be wrong. man. I call you that instead of your word ‘asshole’ as I try to meet long standing standards…
Defending free speech and free press rights, which typically means defending the right to disseminate the very ideas society finds most repellent, has been one of my principal passions for the last 20 years: previously as a lawyer and now as a journalist. So I consider it positive when large numbers of people loudly invoke this principle, as has been…
Commander Shepard, the player-created hero of BioWare’s Mass Effect trilogy, began life as a woman, developer Jonathan Cooper revealed on Twitter today. Cooper is currently an animator on Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End at Naughty Dog, but he previously worked at Ubisoft Montreal as the animation director for Assassin’s Creed 3, and prior to that,…
There is little empathy at the top. Most of America’s richest think poor people have it easy in this country, according to a new report released by the Pew Research Center. The center surveyed a nationally representative group of people this past fall, and found that the majority of the country’s most financially secure citizens…
After only a couple of months in the adult industry, 21-year-old Lebanese-American Mia Khalifa took the crown for most-searched-for star on PornHub from the legendary Lisa Ann of “Nailin’ Paylin” fame. It was a surprise win for the newcomer, who took to Instagram to humbly celebrate with a blushing emoji and caption reading, “nothing but…
Why the death of Ahmed Merabet, one of the police officers who was killed in Wednesday’s Charlie Hebdo attack, is a vital part of the story in France. Antonio Bronic/Reuters/The Atlantic For a number of reasons, the death of Ahmed Merabet should provide a way to understand Wednesday’s horrific shooting in Paris. Merabet, one of…
close shareTools The journalists at Charlie Hebdo are now rightly being celebrated as martyrs on behalf of freedom of expression, but let’s face it: If they had tried to publish their satirical newspaper on any American university campus over the last two decades it wouldn’t have lasted 30 seconds. Student and faculty groups would have…
Another month, another attempt by the BLS to mask the collapse in the US labor force with a goalseeked seasonally-adjusted surge in waiter, bartender and other low-paying jobs. Case in point: after a modest rebound by 0.1% in November, the labor participation rate just slid once more, dropping to 62.7%, or the lowest print since…