BY LISA FAGER
Dateline: Wednesday, 03 October 2007

There can be no doubt that much Hip Hop product is pathological. But whose product is it? Industry activist Lisa Fager went to Capitol Hill to school lawmakers on the real purveyors of audio and video mayhem: the music and communications corporations that control the destructive content that saturates the market. Pathology is not limited to musical product; it oozes into the public discourse in the form of racist speech and images that defame the powerless - all for the sake of corporate profit margins. Under relentless media consolidation, music playlists have become uniform indicators of massive payola - “an organized corporate crime.”

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BHL, a man of strong opinions and a very high opinion of himself.

BY BERNARD HENRI-LEVY

[from the February 27, 2006 issue of The Nation]
REPUBLISHED AS A PUBLIC SERVICE

Editorial Caveat: Who is this diagnostician for the American Left?: In French and US establishment journals, Bernard-Henri Levy, or BHL, as he is commonly known, is one of the best-acclaimed “philosophes” and authors in France today. But when it comes to Henri-Levy, surely probably one of the great “poseurs” and leftist apostates on the world stage, such accolades are to be taken with a huge lump of salt. Indeed, a new biography by French journalists Jade Lindgaard and Xavier de la Porte is the first in a series of seven acerbic critiques of BHL to be released in the coming years and marks an unprecedented attack on the high-profile academic. Read the rest of this entry »

BY AMBROSIA BIERCE

With this contribution we continue our exploration of scatological mysteries in everyday life, suggested by our resident pop anthropologists. For further reading on our everyday scatological challenges, see: INTER FECES ED URINAM

We’ve all been there but don’t like to admit it. We’ve all kicked back in our cubicles and suddenly felt something brewing down below.

As much as we try to convince ourselves otherwise, the WORK POOP is
inevitable. For those who hate pooping at work, following is the
Survival Guide for taking a dump at work. Read the rest of this entry »

MANY WOMEN HAVE ALWAYS BEEN SELF-CONSCIOUS ABOUT DISCHARGING THEIR NATURAL FUNCTIONS IN PUBLIC, EVEN IF THEY DON’T FEEL THE SAME ESTHETIC PANGS WHEN FULFILLING THE UNIQUELY MESSY TASK OF BIRTHING. BELOW, TWO REPORTS FROM THE MOST RECONDITE OF FRONTS. WILL THE INCONGRUITY BETWEEN THE FABLED ETHEREAL CONNOTATIONS OF THE “GENTLER SEX” AND THE INEVITABLE BIOLOGICAL REALITIES EVER BE RECONCILED?

Take One

BY STEPHANIE FAIRYINGTON

Another Problem With No Name: Gals in Public Stalls //•\ ||

There’s no doubt that the bad-ass, brazen Betty Friedan and her 1963 declaration of women’s independence, The Feminine Mystique, helped galvanize the modern-day feminist movement. But the other night, fact-checking a tribute to this grand dame at the glossy women’s magazine where I’m employed, it hit me that Friedan and her successors failed to address an ever-present problem in women’s lives: the excruciating anxiety we experience when “nature calls” in bathrooms where we work. Read the rest of this entry »