College Norms
Understanding the speech politics of the new campus activism.
PEN America's Omar Safadi examines the tension between free speech and inclusivity on the American college campus, and explains why recent controversies around trigger warnings and safe spaces reveal the work of social change, and serve to amplify diverse voices and expand freedom of expression to more voices on campus.
Last month, PEN America released the investigative report And Campus for All: Diversity, Inclusion, and Free Speech at U.S. Universities.
Bern after reading: Why the beltway press wrote off the possibility of Bernie Sanders.
Writer Thomas Frank examines the DC media's coverage of the Sanders campaign, and finds an antagonism driven by the same elitist politics and beltway solipsism that power both the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party leadership, and a shared ideological blindspot towards the possibilities of politics and the worth of stale (often disastrous) Beltway consensus.
Tom wrote the Harper's cover story Swat Team: The media’s extermination of Bernie Sanders, and real reform.
Stealing the best election money can buy.
Investigative reporter Greg Palast digs into the stealing of the 2016 election, and explains how Republicans turned fictional voter fraud into the very real Crosscheck, a massive, secret operation designed to disenfranchise millions of Americans for the crimes of having names like Jefferson, Fernandez and Kim. Greg also plugs the hell out of the film documenting his investigation, with a little help from Ice T, Willie Nelson and Rosario Dawson.
Greg's latest documentary The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: The Movie is screening in select theaters nationwide and available online right now.
St Peter's tears, coffin lids and the burden of human folly: A concert report.
In a sublime Moment of Truth, low-rent bum Jeff Dorchen attends a chorale performance of a 400+ year old piece of musique religieuse, along with his friends St. Peter and Jesus, and considers the compromises of mortal life, the free-ness of free will, the closing of coffin lids, autumn in LA (while either thing lasts) and the cosmic ledger unto which are deeds are maybe or maybe not recorded.
