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Political Culture: Americans, Running Hot N Cold
Katy Perry's aborted Sesame Street appearance launched a short-lived kerfuffle, but offers a neat allegory for explaining the idiocy of the current political climate. Jon Cummings considers the merits of Katy's cleavage and other
Read More »Political Culture: The Not-So-Great Society
Now is the summer of our discontent … arriving on the heels of a spring, winter, autumn and previous summer that roiled in similar fashion. Americans, it seems, have declared open season upon one
Read More »Political Culture: Partisan Bipartisanship
A couple of extraordinary things happened this past week. One was a big f’ing deal indeed, but the other was a bit more personal. As Sunday night’s Democratic victory on health care turned into
Read More »Political Culture: How To Train Your Teafoxlican
We’re supposedly just three days away from the final House votes on health care, and still nobody’s sure how it’s going to go. If you listen to Fox News, there’s no way Nancy Pelosi
Read More »Political Culture: Let Obama Be Bartlet (Or at Least Bush)
The most thrilling, and also the most ridiculous, presidential speech of modern times came not from an actual president, but from a fake one. Michael Douglas’ off-the-cuff remarks at the close of The American
Read More »Political Culture: The Rapture of Ayn Rand, Part One
“We do not tell – we show.” So says the mentor of Atlas Shrugged‘s three key “strikers,” philosopher Hugh Akston … on page 735 of a 1,168-page novel, in a passage that precedes by
Read More »Political Culture: Ayn Rand’s Shangri-La of Self-Interest
I tried. I tried so hard. You’ve gotta believe me when I tell you how I tried and tried to finish Ayn Rand’s oversize chronicle of obsessive-compulsive capitalism, Atlas Shrugged, over the holidays so
Read More »Political Culture: Ayn Rand’s Polemical Porn
Here’s the thing about reading Ayn Rand: She forces you to think the way she does. Once you’ve immersed yourself in her black-and-white worldview — and once you’ve adjusted your expectations to accommodate her
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