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Bearings
10.08.07 | by Allen McDuffee
It would seem like a real blunder, maybe even cultural insensitivity, for Starbucks to market a new food product just for the month Ramadan -- the month Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset. But Starbucks executives seem to think this caffeinated version of "think globally, act locally" strikes the right marketing balance.
07.25.07 | by Richard C. Crepeau
It's difficult to know what to say about the Michael Vick story, and it might be wise to say nothing just yet. It does, however, bring to the forefront some interesting bits of history concerning what constitutes sport; the relationship of sport to gambling; the confluence of sport and masculinity; the evolution of what is seen as civilized and barbaric behavior; and the ways in which people react to that behavior.
04.17.07 | by Tamara K. Nopper
Like many, I was glued to the television news yesterday, keeping updated about the horrific shootings at Virginia Tech University. I was trying to deal with my own disgust and sadness, especially since my professional life as a graduate student and college instructor is tied to universities. And then the other shoe dropped. I found out from a friend that the news channel she was watching had reported the shooter as Asian.
10.09.06 | by Kim Blank
Three inches. That seems to be the magic length--of course, that-s in addition to what you already have.
Then there-s "girth." Apparently, for the average Dick, Harry, and Tom, that needs to be increased by about 20 percent.
04.02.03 | by Richard C. Crepeau
How do you simultaneously cover the Road to the Final Four and the Road to Baghdad?
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Depth
07.29.08 | by Tim Mitchell
The 1998 film “Dark City” will be re-released on DVD this week in a new director’s cut that features additional footage. I’ve always felt that “Dark City” never received the recognition it deserved — due in no small part to being overshadowed later by a very similar film, “The Matrix,” in 1999.
What is particularly [...]
06.09.08 | by Tim Mitchell
This article examines the "Mimic" films, particularly how the plot device of the "Big Bug" monster is still relevant to public discourse on scientific issues. In particular, concepts and issues that are specific to genetic research and their related environmental and political impacts permeate the "Mimic" films, thus making them different from their irradiated Atomic Age predecessors and worthy of unique consideration.
05.11.08 | by Tim Mitchell
Fears of vicious attacks and random massacres are not the product of some aberration of the natural order but an honest reflection of how the universe actually works. Thus, fears of this type of world do not center on vanquishing monsters to save others so much as on just surviving in a pre-determined situation. What kind of horror film is this? The crossover film that has the word "versus" in the title -- namely, "Freddy vs. Jason" (2003), "Alien vs. Predator" (2004) and the recent "Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem" (2007).
09.13.07 | by Sam J. Miller
The modern haunted house film is fundamentally about gentrification. Again and again we see fictional families move into spaces from which others have been violently displaced, and the new arrivals suffer for that violence even if they themselves have done nothing wrong.
10.18.03 | by Douglas L. Howard
The films of Summer 2003 reflected a fascination with metamorphosis that spoke to our anxieties toward a world in flux
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Dispatches
08.10.07 | by David Masciotra
“I don’t want to watch a gay man tell me about the war.”
This odd admission of stultifying prejudice was spat out boldly and proudly by a friend of mine during a speculative conversation about rumors of Anderson Cooper’s supposed homosexuality. His argument failed to “close the loop,” to borrow a term from electricity. The point [...]
12.02.02 | by Richard C. Crepeau
On the London stage where Jimmy Hendrix once performed, Michael Moore is now pacing back and forth, huffing and puffing and firing salvos at his personal axis of evil: Bush, Blair and middle-class complacency
11.15.02 | by Christine Cupaiuolo
Harry Potter scholar Eliza T. Dresang talks with PopPolitics about the complexity of the books, the strength of Hermione and why Harry is loved worldwide
09.20.02 | by Alana Kumbier
Dr. Charlotte Frances Cole of the Sesame Workshop talks with PopPolitics about Takalani Sesame's new HIV-positive character, Kami
08.28.02 | by Adam Baer
Neal Conan, host of NPR's Talk of the Nation and author of Play by Play, talks with PopPolitics about radio, baseball and the land of last chances
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Impressions
06.29.08 | by David Masciotra
How does one make a 14-year-old who hates high school excited about language, learning and politics? One way guaranteed to be effective is to make the entire process painfully funny.
At one point I was that kid, awkwardly stumbling through adolescence, bored by conventional classroom tactics, attempting to determine what interested me as a student and [...]
12.25.03 | by Richard C. Crepeau
If you're going to spend Christmas in Florida, forget the lights and embrace the humidity
07.13.03 | by Richard C. Crepeau
Now is the time to celebrate the Chicago Cubs' gloriously unmatched century of futility
04.29.03 | by Laura Fokkena
For New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, the world is divided into the reasonable and the unreasonable: the people you can sit down and talk to, and the loose cannon outliers who must be contained
04.17.03 | by William MacDougall
As expected, the sacking of Baghdad by victorious coalition forces -- that is America, Great Britain and a handful of Australian and Danish troops -- has moved pro-war commentators to lyrical flights of fancy not witnessed since, say, the liberation of Af
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