|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
By Chris Abani $11.20
By Lawrence Lessig $16.35
$24
|
|
|
|
 Gage Skidmore (CC-BY-SA)
|
The former GOP front-runner seemed to enjoy the spotlight, so it comes as some surprise to learn that he rebuffed ABC’s offer to cha cha with other B-list (and below) celebrities on “Dancing With the Stars.” Apparently he does not have moves like Tom DeLay.
Posted on Feb 14, 2012
|
 nydailynews.com
|
So much for Rubenesque: An artist by the memorable name of Anna Utopia Giordano has reshaped the famous figures of several nudes from classical paintings—think Velazquez, Bouguereau and Botticelli—to give them a 21st-century sensibility. (Read: They’re a lot skinnier.)
Posted on Feb 14, 2012
|
 Wikimedia Commons / Gage Skidmore (CC-BY-SA)
|
The Hollywood Republican is an uncommon breed, and many specimens apparently feel that their chosen professional habitat does not allow them to proliferate as freely as their less conservative counterparts. But sightings are more common during election season. (Above, Vince Vaughn, a supporter of Ron Paul.)
Posted on Feb 13, 2012
6 COMMENTS
|
 Flickr/Asterio Tecson (CC-BY-SA)
|
Early on Sunday morning, somewhere around 4 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, the going price of “The Ultimate Collection,” a greatest-hits compilation by the newly departed musical icon Whitney Houston, jumped 60 percent on the U.K. version of Apple’s iTunes store. By Sunday night, the price had dropped, but by then The Guardian had also taken note.
Posted on Feb 13, 2012
|
 Muffet (CC-BY)
|
As George Orwell pointed out more than half a century ago, the storehouse of the English language occasionally needs a good sweep. In the hands of excited, careless or tired writers, words and phrases that once were new or uniquely descriptive become so overused that they seem to threaten the integrity of the language itself. With a broom (or rather, cartwheel) in hand, CounterPunch editor Alexander Cockburn attempts a cleaning.
Posted on Feb 11, 2012
5 COMMENTS
|
 imdb.com
|
By Richard Schickel — The cabaret’s women are half-naked so much of the time that they are, as it were, clothed in their own nudity. More significantly, I think, the show often presents them very abstractly. In particular, the lighting presents this or that aspect of their bodies in such a way that they lose all particularity. They are not, in these representations, “women,” but are “woman.”
|

|
By Thomas Byrne Edsall —
Are voters as polarized as their elected officials? The question, which has serious implications in an election year, has put political scientists at loggerheads in several new and recent books.
Posted on Feb 9, 2012
7 COMMENTS
|
 Wikimedia Commons / Angela George (CC-BY-SA)
|
There may be untold millions of onetime Obama boosters whose feelings of hope have significantly diminished since, say, November 2008—and with good reason. But on Tuesday night, one of the president’s celebrity supporters, Scarlett Johansson, showed she’s still willing to stump for Obama at a gathering in New York that brought fashionistas and politicos together.
Posted on Feb 8, 2012
9 COMMENTS
|
 EPA
|
Animated movies make a bundle on commercial tie-ins, but “The Lorax” presented something of a challenge for Universal. After all, you can’t have plastic replicas of Dr. Seuss’ champion of the environment piling up in a landfill somewhere. The studio found a way to cash in by greenwashing its licensing with help from the EPA and Whole Foods.
Posted on Feb 8, 2012
|
 AP / Tony Gutierrez
|
Conservative power ranger Chuck Norris has come out swinging for the GOP once again—this time, he’s willing to lend his unique celebrity brand to give Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign a boost with a memorably worded endorsement only he could compose.
|
 YouTube
|
The funny thing about certain TV watchdogs getting their collective knickers in a twist over upstart pop star M.I.A.’s bird-flipping antics during her performance with Madonna and Nicki Minaj at Sunday’s Super Bowl halftime show is that millions of Americans might otherwise have blinked and missed it.
Posted on Feb 6, 2012
5 COMMENTS
|
 The Huffington Post
|
Those who caught the Super Bowl broadcast Sunday might have heard Clint Eastwood’s gravelly growl emanating from their sets during one of the big game’s coveted ad breaks.
|

|
By Cherilyn Parsons — “The Orphan Master’s Son” by Adam Johnson is a rich, careening, dystopian tale that gives us a visceral hit of life inside North Korea.
|
 AP / Damian Dovarganes
|
In 1970, Don Cornelius set “Soul Train” rolling into American homes in Chicago, and soon the R&B-heavy weekly broadcast became a showcase for predominantly black musical acts and a fixture on TV sets around the country—and it didn’t stop for 35 years.
Posted on Feb 1, 2012
2 COMMENTS
|
 Chevrolet
|
By Michael Grabell, ProPublica —
Until the economic stimulus package was passed in 2009, the manufacture of electric cars and their batteries in the United States was nearly nonexistent.
Posted on Jan 31, 2012
8 COMMENTS
|
|
|