No doubt about it, Fox's "Glee" is a pop-culture juggernaut. In 2009, the "Glee" cast landed 25 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, the most by any artist since The Beatles. The show is syndicated all over the world. Its second season debut scored more than 12 million viewers. Clearly, Fox knows that this show about a high-school glee club is a hot ticket for high-schoolers, and its appeal trickles down through the lower grades. They're the ones who are downloading all the "Glee" singles for their iPods. So who is the marketing genius who decided that female "Glee" stars... continue reading
National Public Radio's firing of Juan Williams tells you all you need to know about the radical, and thoroughly intolerant, Left. Juan Williams is a liberal, but still, he isn't liberal enough. The idea that he would acknowledge a mere thought of discomfort at the idea of people in "Muslim garb" on airplanes in a post-9/11 world became a firing offense. It didn't matter that he prefaced it with all the perfunctory and politically correct disclaimers about not being a bigot and we shouldn't blame all Muslims for terrorism. Fired. Today's Left is void of any principles whatsoever. They can... continue reading
Rocco Landesman is the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, and boy, does he know how to spin the official line on offensive art. In a recent interview in Cincinnati, he was asked vaguely about controversy. "The best art taps into deep feelings, sometimes to comfort and sometimes to confront. Art can be very uncomfortable," Landesman said. "What can lead to strong reactions - for some of us, it draws us into the arts over our lifetimes and careers. For others, it creates strong negative feelings." Landesman wasn't being asked specifically about negative feelings over the Loveland Gallery... continue reading
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid finally appeared in a debate on October 14 in Las Vegas with his Republican opponent, Sharron Angle. The appearance might come as a surprise to consumers of the national media. While Angle has been pounded relentlessly by national media outlets as being both dangerously radical and ridiculous, Reid has been left alone, and untouched. But what about Harry? He's the Majority Leader after all. Is he, like so many of his colleagues, simply afraid to talk about his legislative "accomplishments"? Nobody's wondered why he hasn't been making the rounds of interviews on national television. While... continue reading
Why does it seem at times that our government and "public health" advocates think parents are a social problem? Parents at Hardy Middle School in the affluent Glover Park neighborhood in Washington, DC were shocked to discover that a sex-and-drug-use survey had been distributed to 12-year-olds in their physical education classes without any warnings or consent forms sent to parents. The first words the children read were these: "This questionnaire asks you about sex and drugs (like cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, ecstasy, and marijuana)." Of course, they promised, "Your answers will not be told to anyone in your school or family."... continue reading
A major part of the Barack Obama narrative when he ran for president was his international roots, the global sweep of his life, and how much more cosmopolitan he would be as president than the pedestrian George W. Bush. So it's a little weird to watch Obama yelling from the campaign podium that foreigners are funding political commercials and stealing our elections. Obama's now stooped to accusing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce of being a tool of foreign operatives. He doesn't produce any evidence to make the charge; but since when has this stopped him? Obama's Organizing for America clones... continue reading
America was horrified by the story that erupted in the national news, that Rutgers college freshman Tyler Clementi threw himself off a bridge because his new roommate used a webcam to tape a homosexual encounter in which he'd engaged. Media outlets quickly dispatched their cavalry to find the experts to explain why America is a land of incessant bullying. The if is no longer debatable. We're on to the why. This could have been a moment of national unity. Almost everyone can tell a story of being the target of bullying or mean-spirited ridicule about being too tall, too short,... continue reading
It's a topsy-turvy, upside-down political world out there for people who thought Barack Obama would be cruising at a 70 percent approval rating while crushing the Republicans like bugs. In fact, the opposite has happened. The Senate Majority Leader is in grave danger of involuntary retirement. Everyone in Washington concedes Nancy Pelosi is unlikely to bang the gavel in January. So why in the world does the tone of news coverage suggest all kinds of political problems...for conservatives, as if they were the collapsing majority in this campaign? The media elites sound like they're resigned to the idea that a... continue reading
Don't read Newsweek magazine while drinking a beverage. A spit take is the obvious first reaction to a column by Julia Baird headlined "The Shame of Family Films." On the Internet, this article is coded as "Why family films are so sexist." Baird's denunciation of Hollywood's fraction of decent entertainment began: "They have all been smash hits: 'Finding Nemo,' 'Madagascar,' 'Ice Age,' 'Toy Story.' Fish, penguins, rats, stuffed animals, talking toys. All good innocent family fun, right? Sure, except there are few female characters in those films. There are certainly few doing anything meaningful or heroic - and no, Bo... continue reading
NBC-Universal is getting ridiculous with its shameless courting of President Obama. On the morning of September 27, NBC's Matt Lauer interviewed Barack Obama for a half-hour with no commercials. But it wasn't just on NBC. Their devotion to El Jefe is so transparent they aired it live on most of their other cable properties, including MSNBC, USA, Syfy, Bravo, Oxygen, Chiller, Sleuth, Uni HD, and Universal Sports. The announced topic was education, but Lauer also turned to politics, and that's where the NBC host just regurgitated the current liberal complaint: Obama is apparently too calm and not tough enough toward... continue reading