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How a Tweet About a Gay, Black Santa Turned Into a Children's Book
A story reverse-engineered to piss off homophobes and racists.
The Origins of Libyan Rage: From CIA Waterboarding to the Post-Gaddafi Power Vacuum
Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch released a remarkable report titled "Delivered Into Enemy Hands":http://www.hrw.org/reports/2012/09/05/delivered-enemy-hands It's based on interviews with 14 former detainees of the United States government, most...
Lower Dens' Jana Hunter Writes Cyborg Music for Techno Fear: Interview
Electronic rock has never felt so much like cyborg rock as on Lower Dens' new record, _Nootropics_. It's an aesthetic as much as a concept, a delicate and subtle mingling of synthesized or processed or programmed sounds with a rock scheme nodding...
"We Have to Force Their Hand": How the GOP Is Winning the War On Environmental Regulation
"Yes, my plan will continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet – because climate change is not a hoax," President Obama declared at the DNC, "More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. They're a threat to our children...
How NBC's Olympics Coverage Won Primetime: An Interview with Emmy Award-Winning Director Brad Garfield
For all the grief NBC has received for its coverage this Olympics, London 2012 is looking like it will be a roaring success for the old peacock. Ratings for this go-round are beating ratings from Beijing, which has led the network to predict it might...
The Fine Art of Keeping the World's Weird Films Alive: An Interview with Archivist Rick Prelinger
Rick Prelinger is an archivist rockstar. In the DIY spirit, he created his acclaimed Prelinger Library from scratch -- by touring the world in search of its rare and beautiful advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur films. In 2002, after...
What to Do with America's Parking Lot Blight: An Interview with MIT Urban Planning Professor Eran Ben-Joseph
The image of the surface parking lot occupies permanent space in the subconscious of those raised in suburbia. Just imagine the expansive yards of pavement seemingly stretching out eternally and establishing, what James Howard Kunstler referred to as...
Fix the Broken Olympics with Tug of War
Next week the Olympic flame will arrive in London for the start of the 2012 Games. With it will come a growing barrage of criticism "from counter-event organizers":http://counterolympicsnetwork.wordpress.com/ and critical observers, skeptical of the...
Why We're Pill-Addict Meat Apologists: An Interview with Author Martha Rosenberg
"Can anyone remember life before 'Ask Your Doctor' ads?" This question opens Martha Rosenberg's Born with a Junk Food Deficiency: How Flaks, Quacks, and Hacks Pimp the Public Health and hangs over the proceeding chapters. Even the most hardened cynic...
Deepwater Horizon Changed Nothing: An Interview with Author Abrahm Lustgarten
It’s been two years since the Deepwater Horizon disaster. We may still be dealing with its environmental impact, but a number of recent books suggest that we have now obtained the perspective needed to adequately assess the tragedy. Rising to the top...
Jill Tarter Has Just Spent 35 Years Leading the Hunt for Extraterrestrial Intelligence: Interview
Jill Tarter has been leading the hunt for extra-terrestrial life at SETI for the past 35 years. On May 22, she announced that she would be stepping down, leaving a search that's become more helpful that ever since the discoveries of thousands of...
Cave-Pop Band Total Slacker Is Adding to Its VHS Mountain with Every Show: Interview
As far as I know, "Total Slacker":http://www.facebook.com/pages/Total-Slacker/309526335744 is the only band to have a personal VHS videographer. Their buddy, John Kelley, lugs around a chunky ’97 Panasonic VHS camcorder to film them at shows and...