October 7, 2015
‘Space Ghost Coast to Coast,’ Secretly TV’s Most Influential Show
Few people afford Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Cartoon Network’s strange, seminal comedy, its rightful place in the pantheon. But from its bargain-basement launch in 1994 to its place at the center of the wildly popular Adult Swim lineup in the 2000s, it helped introduce cringe comedy to the American viewing public, deconstructed the idea of the talk show beyond repair for a generation of comedians, and changed the look and feel of the entire animation art form.
Stereotype Threat, Imposter Syndrome and Stereotype Tax
How Poker Player Annie Duke Used Gender Stereotypes To Win Matches - "By the time she got to that championship game 10 years later, she had also figured out a way to make people pay, quite literally, for the stereotypes they had about her." (previously)
None more black
The Great British Bake-off
"No - no no no! Dude, don't do that!"
Extreme phone pinching is the latest trend sweeping social media networks, and it involves holding your expensive phone over perilous locations.
"You and I are in fact unequal."
Male engineering student Jared Mauldin, a senior at Eastern Washington University, wrote a letter to the editor of The Easterner expounding on the differences between him and the women entering his program. [more inside]
"This is not who I am"
Steve Rannazzisi discusses with Howard Stern how a lie told by a young comedian seeking acceptance snowballed into a career-threatening scandal.
“This is for the kids,” he said, “I’m too old.”
The stage is set...
The Sherlock special trailer (SLYT)
Verus sis is futurus
The University of Antarctica has a central campus consisting of 400 acres in a built-up area around University Peak, Victoria Land. The official founding occured on Antarctic Independence Day (23 June 1961), when it became Antarctica's first (and still its only) university.
"...and I was licking the baby's face."
Earlier this year, legendary actor Brian Blessed withdrew from the Guildford Shakespeare Company's production of King Lear due to complications with an existing heart condition. And so to see his name trending on Twitter this morning was a cause of some alarm to his fans - until it was revealed that not only was he not dead, he was on BBC Radio 4 talking about a 1963 incident in which he helped a woman deliver her baby in a public park. [Warning: some birth details]
You can't spell America without Gay Cabal
Author and historian Bob Arnebeck writes about early American history and its Founding Fathers' "relationships with men beyond conventional propriety." Featured characters include war hero and Washington D.C planner Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the first inspector general of the US Army Baron Von Steuben , and Alexander Hamilton. Bonus: Revolutinary America's tolerance for homosexuality by Victoria A. Brownworth.
Squidward laughing spreads his wings, OH LORD YEAH!
If you watch only one completely-realized, well-lipsynched, full-length video mashing up Spongebob Squarepants clips with Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" this year, make it this one.
Meatloaf Again?
From today's Atlantic magazine: a treatise on the economic history of leftovers, and how America's overall rise to the status of economic superpower lead to their downshift from "budget-minded lifesaver" to "butt of jokes." [more inside]
Buck up, you melancholy dadbod!
a button to stop all the chaos that doesn't work
On October 1st, Davey Wreden (creater of The Stanley Parable, previously) released The Beginner's Guide. "It lasts about an hour and a half and has no traditional mechanics, no goals or objectives. Instead, it tells the story of a person struggling to deal with something they do not understand." [more inside]
Harvard Debate Team Loses to Maximum Security Prisoners
Harvard's debate team won the world championship in 2014 and the national championship in 2015, but lost to a team at the Eastern New York Correctional Facility, a maximum-security state prison. The debate program at Eastern is part of the Bard Prison Initiative, which teaches classes in six prisons across New York "to redefine the relationship between educational opportunity and criminal justice." [more inside]
Wait..."the real Betty"?
The rebooting of Riverdale continues apace today with the release of "Jughead" by
Erica Henderson and Chip Zdarsky, and the reviews are highly positive. [more inside]
Sleep Aid
"It’s late, and you’re still awake. Allow us to help with Sleep Aid, a series devoted to curing insomnia with the dullest, most soporific texts available in the public domain." [more inside]
Megabeer is almost here
SABMiller may have rejected Anheuser-Busch InBev's latest offer, but some analysts think an eventual merger is inevitable. [more inside]
"This is where people died. For that right. Our right."
Following the 2014 implementation of a strict photo voter ID law and a 54% increase in the cost of a driver license earlier this year, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency cited budget cuts as the instigating factor for the recent closure of 31 driver license bureaus across the state. As of last week, every county in Alabama where black citizens currently comprise more than 75% of registered voters has had its driver license office closed. [more inside]
The white man in that photo
The story of Peter Norman, the Australian sprinter and third man in the Black Power salute picture from the 1968 Olympic Games. [more inside]
Proposed D.C. Policy Would Offer 16 Weeks Paid Family Leave
The District would become the most generous place in the country for a worker to take time off after giving birth or to care for a dying parent under a measure proposed in the D.C. Council. Under the legislation introduced October 6, "almost every part-time and full-time employee in the nation’s capital would be entitled to 16 weeks of paid family leave to bond with an infant or an adopted child, recover from an illness, recuperate from a military deployment or tend to an ill family member," according to The Washington Post. [more inside]
The disaster that liberated me
When the Kashmir earthquake struck in October 2005, Tabinda Kokab was a teacher in a remote village close to the epicentre. She recalls the day that changed her life, and how it forced her to throw off the expectations that Pakistani society had placed on her as a woman. [more inside]
An outrage in Kunduz
The MSF (Médecins sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders) Trauma Center in Kunduz, Afghanistan, was attacked by US forces on October 3rd. The rationale for the attack remains unclear, with differing accounts being given by US officials. MSF has condemned the attack, in which at least twenty-two people were killed, and called for an independent inquiry into the bombing. [more inside]
Hello, Darling.
This Friday, people will be able to go to the theater and see yet another interpretation of J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan". Such news does not necessarily excite Barrie fans, given the middling results of some past interpretations (and Pan isn't being received much better). But the AV Club's Ryan Vlastelica argues they can take heart that the best "Peter Pan" movie was already made... in 2003.
Manoj Bhargava wants to change the world
Manoj Bhargava the inventor of 5 Hour Energy Drink (prev), wants to spend his billions fixing the world's problems. [more inside]
“...and at the time he was everybody’s favorite dad.”
To Revoke or Not: Colleges That Gave Cosby Honors Face a Tough Question by Sydney Ember and Colin Moynihan [New York Times]
Few people in American history have been recognized by universities as often as Mr. Cosby, whose publicist once estimated that the entertainer had collected more than 100 honorary degrees. The New York Times, in a quick search, found nearly 60. But now, as dozens of women have come forward to accuse Mr. Cosby of sexual assault, colleges across the country are confronting the question of what to do when someone who has been honored falls from grace.[more inside]
A Criminal Mind
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