‘Glenn Beck Is Mean’ Edition

Posted on Jan 15, 2010

America’s most famous crybaby was just vicious to Sarah Palin. He asked her who her favorite founding father was ... and ... she ... froze. In other news: Privacy is for old people, it looks like the Jews didn’t build the pyramids, and someone was arrested for interfering with Tiger Woods’ right to sell Gatorade.

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On a regular basis, Truthdig brings you the news items and odds and ends that found their way to Larry Gross, director of the USC Annenberg School for Communication. A specialist in media and culture, art and communication, visual communication and media portrayals of minorities, Gross helped found the field of gay and lesbian studies.

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Talk Like an Egyptian With UseMyAccent.com
Citizens of the blogosphere who enjoy ranting about such things agree that Angelina Jolie was conquered by the Greek accent demanded of her in the Oliver Stone epic “Alexander,” that Brad Pitt’s Austrian accent in “Seven Years in Tibet” would have tried the tolerance of even the Dalai Lama, and that “ay yi yi” was the best response to Al Pacino’s go at a Cuban accent in “Scarface.”

Revise the Haggadah? Slaves Didn’t Build Pyramids: Egypt
The tombs of ancient Egyptian pyramid builders suggest these artisans were respected—and paid—for their work.

Flattery Will Get You Far
The authors speculated that the susceptibility to flattery stemmed from a simple desire to feel good about themselves. Indeed, we hold ourselves in high esteem, a phenomenon known as the above-average effect.

Great Moments With Harold Ford
Rep. Harold Ford Jr., who wants to become a U.S. senator from Tennessee, has sunk lower than a snake.

Gay Teen Worries He Might Be Christian
“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” Faber admitted to reporters Monday. “It’s like I get these weird urges sometimes, and suddenly I’m tempted to go behind my friends’ backs and attend a megachurch service, or censor books in the school library in some way. Even just the thought of organizing a CD-burning turns me on.”

Facebook Founder: Privacy Just a Passing Fad
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has denounced privacy as a “social norm” of the past as social networking’s popularity continues to grow.

Department of Things You Didn’t Know You Needed
A Michigan company announced the release of software Tuesday that introduces new punctuation to the typed word: The sarcasm mark.

The U.S. Military, al-Qaida, and a War of Futility
In his book on World War II in the Pacific, “War Without Mercy,” John Dower tells an extraordinary tale about the changing American image of the Japanese fighting man.

Glen Beck Is Mean to Sarah Palin—He Asks Her a History Question

Playboy and the Making of the Good Life in Modern America
The historian Elizabeth Fraterrigo asks us to accept a somewhat unlikely premise, which is this: A titty magazine that has been culturally irrelevant since the late 1970s was at the forefront of many of this nation’s most important social upheavals and reconfigurations.

Tiger Woods ‘Pop Art’ Bust
A Colorado artist who replaced the labels on 100 Gatorade bottles with a picture of Tiger Woods and his wife and the word unfaithful—and then returned the items to store shelves—has been charged with tampering with the sports drink.

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