Advertising and decadence – political ads then and now Brian Doherty It’s not all downhill for political ads. One truism everyone can agree on about this year’s presidential election is that the tenor of its advertisements was extremely unlovely – divisive, bitter, negative. Dole’s campaign whined in September that 90 percent of Bill Clinton’s ads […]
Safety for profit: traffic light cameras questioned – Citings – Brief Article Sara Rimensnyder MANY SPY-CAM critics have charged that traffic light cameras are geared toward ticket revenue more than safety. Now the leader of Washington, D.C., has admitted as much. “The cameras are about safety and revenue,” Mayor Anthony Williams told a local radio […]
Isn’t it ironic? – Yum-Yum music performers Brian Doherty The tangled discourse of anti-market snobbery at Harper’s In September 1996 in Manhattan, I saw a rock band called Yum-Yum perform as part of the alternative rock industry’s biggest showcase, the College Music Journal Convention. The band’s label, an affiliate of Atlantic Records (part of Time […]
Drug Kingpins – marijuana farm in Wisconsin – Brief Article Jeff A. Taylor A 74-year-old Wisconsin farmer and his 80-year-old brother are charged with running a marijuana farm after pot worth $598,000 is seized. David and Eugene Burmesch could each face up to 30 years in prison. David said he grew the pot because he […]
Drawing 9/11 – Soundbite – Chip Bok – Interview Sara Rimensnyder Starting a career in political cartooning is a tricky business. In the case of award-winning scribbler Chip Bok, his first fulltime position, at Florida’s long-defunct Clearwater Sun, came after a six-year hunt. It also ended in dismissal after a short six months, when a […]
Lessons Learned the Hard Way: A Personal Report. – book reviews John J. Pitney, Jr. By Newt Gingrich. New York: HarperCollins, 256 pages, $25.00. When they took control of Congress in 1994, Republicans promised to cut spending and transform Washington politics. Since then, they’ve had good days and bad days. May 22 of this year […]
The fighting Scots-Irish: they shaped America, but did they make it more free? Charles Oliver Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America, by James Webb, New York: Broadway Books, 369 pages, $14.95 Long dismissed as rednecks, crackers, and hillbillies, the Scots-Irish–also known as Scotch-Irish, Ulster Scots, or Borderers, because they hailed from Northern Ireland and […]
Prisoner of pain Radley Balko [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Richard Paey, a paraplegic with multiple sclerosis, served three years of a 25-year prison sentence before Florida’s Republican governor, Charlie Crist, pardoned him. Paey requires high-dose opiate therapy to treat pain brought on by his M.S., a car accident, and botched back surgery. He was accused of forging […]
Jesus, Gandhi, and Other Terrorists – new Utah law threatens peaceful protest – Brief Article Sara Rimensnyder In Utah, farmers and ranchers have been calling for enhanced legal protection against animal rights activists, some of whom have taken to vandalizing private property and harassing farmers’ families and clients. The state legislature responded this spring with […]
Erotic Archaeology – sealed rooms in Montana brothel opened as museum – Brief Article Charles Paul Freund Rooms that were left sealed and undisturbed for years in a derelict Butte, Montana, house have yielded a glimpse into daily lives otherwise ignored, denied, and certainly never preserved. That’s because the broken-down Victorian house that contained the […]