opinion
GET MAD
Anti-LGBTQ legislation and violence are on the rise. It’s time for “allies” in government to get tough on the bigots and protect the vulnerable.
David Masciotra is the author of five books, including I Am Somebody: Why Jesse Jackson Matters (Bloomsbury, 2020) and Mellencamp: American Troubadour (University Press of Kentucky, 2015). He has written about politics, music, and literature for many publications, including Salon, the Progressive, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. He teaches at Indiana University Northwest.
opinion
DRY RUN
This wasn’t drunk talk. It was a serious, scary plan—and a sign of what’s to come.
Politics and Prose
Decorated Marine, Cabinet official, U.S. Senator, and now presidential candidate, James Webb has somehow found the time to write books, and they say a lot about him.
LISTEN
John Cougar Mellencamp took his own struggles and made them into music relevant to everybody.
Glib
Once one of the nation’s best cultural critics, West has ditched his intellectual chops and embraced the role of public personality recycling the same sound bites.
You don’t have to buy Chomsky’s ideas wholesale to recognize that his often outrageous critiques of American democracy and capitalism usually hit their targets.
Adult Situations
What happens after ‘happily ever after’? Here’s a Buddhist-inspired show that looks at lust honestly, questions marriage, and explores the emptiness at the heart of our lives.
Rebirth
Fourteen years after leaving the stage and studio, he’s back. And this time, the guy who ‘eats too much, is lazy, and loves to play music’ is taking his fight to the machines.
KEEP HOPE ALIVE
The civil rights leader has had a rough decade, but his campaigns for president paved the way for Barack Obama and brought about a better, more inclusive America.
Syllabus
Rage, despair, and confusion trail in the wake of the shooting of Michael Brown. Here’s a reading list that exposes the deep roots in U.S. history that produces such tragedy.