Jon Stewart takes a close look at “Abstinence only sex education”
Jon Stewart takes a close look at some of the basic tenets of "Abstinence Only Sex Education" and finds this approach deficient.
What is truth? Here are some quotes to consider.
What is truth? Such a timely topic these days, now that we seem to be in the post-truth era. I gathered these quotes on the meaning of truth from my favorite quote site, The Quotations Page. In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George…
Diversion of crops for fuel use is “criminal”
The United States and the European Union have taken a “criminal path” by contributing to an explosive rise in global food prices through using food crops to produce biofuels, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food said today.At a press conference in Geneva, Jean Ziegler of Switzerland…
Arrest Bush
Arrest George W. Bush. That is the suggestion of Ted Rall, writing on Common Dreams. Who should arrest President Bush? There is, however, a person who could begin holding Bush and the others accountable for their crimes. She is Cathy L. Lanier, the 39-year-old chief of D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department.…
This Just In: Hannah Montana May Have A Clitoris!
What are we to make of this latest flap over a teen icon revealing herself as a potentially sexual being?
I was only dimly aware of Hannah Montana till the Vanity Fair scandal (if scandal is the word). Now it seems I can’t get away from her, which is, of course, the goal of marketing—to make something inescapable for the general public. There are elements of the incident that require less froth and more examination. The accusations of “whose idea was it in the first place and how was Mylie Cyrus manipulated?” are loud and in many ways naive.
First off, Hannah Montana is a Disney product. I don’t think we’re yet quite comfortable with the idea of a person—even a fictional one—being a “product” like a box of soap or a car, but this is indeed what the character is. Designed, engineered, and road tested, Hannah Montana is a money-making machine for Disney and the various participants in the show and franchise.
Pause for a moment and consider: Disney.
It is difficult to imagine a marketing machine that is better at what it does. Which means the chances of something being done with one of its properties that it (a) doesn’t know about and (b) doesn’t approve are next to zero. Especially when you add to that:
Vanity Fair.
Big magazine, famous magazine, a magazine people in show business lust to get into. In the vernacular, Lot A Bank there.
So we’re talking about two major corporate entities, …