When you step out in clothing that boldly states your womanhood, you are a free woman. You are no longer a slave to old rules and notions. Modernity is inherently free.
President Obama got his campaign slogan from Cesar Chavez, but on this 16th anniversary of the great labor leader’s death we still have no national holiday to commemorate his legacy.
On Good Friday, New York’s Trinity Church reenacted the Passion Play via Twitter, the latest social-networking sensation. Nathan Schneider reports on multitasking his way through the service.
The original St. Valentinus (one of at least seven with the same name, so we can’t be too sure!) was arrested for marrying Roman Christian couples. His bloody martyrdom was particularly brutal. Love and loss, romance and violence. They’ve always gone together.
Indignant responses to the Janet Jackson nipple slip and the somber post-9/11 halftime show reveal glimpses of the sanctity of this yearly ritual, but it’s also in the creation of icons, the reinforcement of rules, and Americans telling themselves stories about themselves.
Forget the standard litany of the best-selling books and most popular movies… This year’s list includes comics, rock bands, Battlestar Galactica, “Hava Nagila” sung to the tune of “The Twist,” and “I Am the Walrus” translated into Aramaic.
Ghouls, ghosts, goblins and Halloween Hell Houses; Traditional Values Coalition’s shameless Video Voter Guide; More on Sarah Palin’s religious affiliations; Hagee hears a Who-mageddon; No candy, no soda, no birth control!
This Halloween, apart from your garden-variety ghouls, skeletons, monsters, witches, vampires and zombies, Americans will be visited by the ghosts of past presidents, the spirits of dead soldiers, and by the souls of those who endured slavery. It is a season of reckoning, both social and political. The election, on the other hand, is about life, today, now. Or is it?
We may not have had a big map, or red and blue markers, or a flashing digital electoral vote count, but some of our favorite writers agreed to share a few words on this big day.
