Staging for Slaminatrix

When the weather is cooperative, I eat breakfast on the porch in front of my apartment. My nervous system is soothed in the presence of squirrels scampering, hummingbirds zipping around my neighbor’s pear tree, and bumblebees bobbing on jasmine blossoms, heavy with pollen. From my perch, I exchange greetings with neighbors as they garden, walk dogs, and push strollers down the street. This time is precious because I make sure it happens before I’ve plugged in to the digital realm.

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When Samantha Bee tweeted that she “crossed a line” by calling Ivanka Trump a “feckless cunt,” she didn’t mention that the line was not installed by the thought police or the religious right. The line she crossed was her own. 

In the apology aired on Full Frontal, she reminded viewers that she has used the C-word many times on her show — all part of a mission to reclaim it. Like some feminists, she wants to recast

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I don’t trust anything that I look forward to too much. And topping that list is the double-edged sword of prestige television. For over half a century, critics have railed against what we used to call the “boob tube,” usually objecting on moral or political grounds.

If they knew dopamine like I know dopamine, they could have made a stronger case.

I’m neither a Puritan nor a Luddite. I’ve thrilled to the Emmy-winning dramas of television’s new Golden Age. And like so many others, I fell victim to what TV critic James Poniewozik calls “The Suck“: “that narcotic, tidal feeling of

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Cutting-edge, 21st century neuroscience and a certain Depression era, Christian-based, self-help fellowship probably rank among the strangest of bedfellows, but they do have one thing in common: when it comes to the treatment of addiction, both rely on the brain’s innate capacity for transformation. Read more…

by Lisa Martinovic

Despite a generation of sensitivity trainings and multicultural studies, an astonishing number of people still feel emboldened to express their misbegotten bigotry in very public arenas. Cops and vigilantes alike are caught on tape throwing down racial slurs before they kill, Rush Limbaugh has no compunction about “slut-shaming” for a national audience, and classroom bullies drive a steady stream of gay youth to suicide. In the face of such madness we may be tempted to question the wisdom of the old nursery rhyme:

Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.

That’s what we were

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