Culture/Society

We no longer educate in the United States of America. No, instead of making to educate our children we emot-ucate them. It's all about our children's tender egos, their vaunted self esteem, their itty bitty feewings. We don't want them to know or understand so much as we want them to "feel good" about themselves. If they don't know during what years the civil war was fought, that's OK as long as…

Amazon.com sells millions of books, CDs and other products each year. So, we can't necessarily expect the online retail giant to be morally responsible for every single last product and, where its book offerings are concerned, we shouldn't ask them to become censors. But, selling a product someone else created and producing the product yourself are two different things. And, in this case, we…

On the flimsy pretext of this being the season when HS seniors get their college acceptances, a New York Times column has set about asking current college students about their plans for future sexual conquests.Stephen Dubner handed his 'Freakonomics' column over to his assistant, Nicole Tourtelot, this week. She asked five collegians five questions. Three of them were innocuous: who's paying for…

Online gossip blog TMZ.com just doesn't know when to quit. In this April 3 post, the site took time from its busy schedule tracking celebrity train wrecks to condescendingly mock former “Bachelor” reality star Navy Lt. Andy Baldwin yet again for retrieving WWII remains. This is the third time TMZ has knocked Baldwin for “diving for old bones." The bashing began in a March 20 post that explained…

Last Thursday's New York Times carried an amusing story of a left-wing catfight. Kara Jesella reported that in Portland, Oregon, an entrepreneur has tried to combine strippers and vegans (the most extreme ahem, denomination of vegetarianism, with no eggs, milk, or animal products). But feminists are outraged that women would be objectified while the entrepreneur evangelizes the vegan gospel on…

Ah, Earf Day. The day when all the Chicken Littles and the occasional boy who cried wolf can get their fifteen minutes of attention. Don't we just love the warm and fuzzies of claiming the mantle of God and "saving" the Earf from global warming? Well, The Washington Times Fishwrap blog reports that Google has joined the fray to save the Earf and they are going to do it by helping Kathleen Rogers…

Ed Rendell is too truthful to be a good vice-presidential candidate. Just ask him. The Pennsylvania governor and Hillary supporter was a guest on this afternoon's Hardball. Wrapping up the interview, host Chris Matthews broached his availability as Veep.CHRIS MATTHEWS: Do you think the Democrats have a shot at carrying Florida on the best of conditions this year? ED RENDELL: Oh, absolutely,…

News has leaked out from the folks at Muppet central (The Jim Henson Company) that the next Muppet feature film will sport a story line that attacks oil companies. According to CHUD.com, the story will center around all our favorite Muppets producing a show to raise money to save their old theater. They need the money, of course, because an "evil character" is trying to buy the building so that…

If only we were all Norwegians, we'd have the high taxes we need and all the welfare we want. But because America is diverse, we selfishly worry that members of other ethnic groups might benefit from our tax dollars. As a result, our taxes aren't high enough and our welfare spending too low. That in a nutshell is Eduardo Porter's thesis in his NY Times column of today, Race and the Social…

Eric Alterman’s new book on Why We're Liberals isn’t just plagued with errors, it makes wild charges, like attacking conservative radio host Laura Ingraham, suggesting she was anti-Semitic for cheering on the movie The Passion of the Christ. In a chapter about how conservatives mock the elites, when they themselves are rich and pampered, Alterman wrote about conservatives: "In Ingraham’s case, as…

On Friday’s CBS "Early Show," co-host Julie Chen teased her upcoming interview with "Gray’s Anatomy" actress Kate Walsh on sex education: "She is one of the hottest actresses in Hollywood today due to her roles on "Gray's Anatomy" and "Private Practice," but she's also passionate about sex education for American teens, and she took her campaign to Capitol Hill. We're going to ask her why this…

In his weekly culture column, Brent Bozell scorned the inaccuracy in the new Eric Alterman book "Why We're Liberals," the one with the cartoon on the cover with all the liberals on it, including (in the back row, far left) Jesus, next to Willie Nelson, who is next to Charles Darwin. Jesus and Darwin, two liberal birds of a feather? There's inaccuracy, even on the cover. Alterman decries "the…