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Culture Tag

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 25, 2017 13 Comments
As a teenager, one of the books I recall reading during that formative phase in my life was Helter Skelter, written by killer cult leader Charles Manson's determined prosecutor, Vincent Bugliosi, who won death sentences for Manson and his band of butchers. The tenacious lawyer, who passed away in 2015, was interviewed by Time Magazine about his book in 2009 about his book and the country's continued fascination with the cult. His explanation centered on the era in which the slaughters occurred.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on November 20, 2017 25 Comments
Last November, a Pennsylvania couple's home was raided by police who mistakenly believed the couple's hibiscus plants to be marijuana.  The couple is now reportedly suing Buffalo Township and Nationwide Insurance for "excessive force, false arrest, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress and invasion of privacy in their lawsuit." The couple's ordeal began when Nationwide Insurance sent an agent out to assess a claim; the agent took pictures of the couple's hibiscus plants and sent them to local police as evidence of the illegal planting and growing of marijuana.  Buffalo Township police reacted by raiding the couple's home and leading a partially-dressed and barefoot Audrey Cramer, 66, out to their patrol car.  Her husband Edward Cramer, 69, was met with drawn guns and arrested upon returning home while his wife was still sitting, handcuffed, in the cruiser.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 19, 2017 39 Comments
Former NAACP activist Rachel Dolezal is quietly selling homemade lollipops from her website. You may remember Dolezal as the gal responsible for making selective race a national discussion. Dolezal, born of two white parents, masqueraded as a black woman for years saying she self-identified as black.

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 17, 2017 16 Comments
The NFL has started an investigation over allegations that Tampa Bay Buccaneers QB Jameis Winston groped a female Uber driver in 2016. BuzzFeed News reported:
A letter, viewed by BuzzFeed News, was sent from the NFL’s special counsel for investigations, Lisa Friel, to the Uber driver on Thursday. “The League has been informed that you may have been the victim of such a violation perpetrated by Tampa Bay Buccaneers player Jameis Winston. The league takes allegations of this nature very seriously and has opened an investigation into this matter,” the letter read.

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 17, 2017 13 Comments
KISS frontman Gene Simmons has been a regular at Fox News for the past years, but after his antics this week, that will change. The Daily Beast reported that the network confirmed it has banned Simmons from the premises for life:
Fox finally had enough of Simmons after he crudely insulted female Fox staffers, taunted them and exposed his chest, and otherwise behaved like the “demon” character he plays onstage. Management was not amused, and Simmons’s photograph was promptly posted Wednesday at the security entrance of the company’s Manhattan headquarters along with a “do-not-admit” advisory.

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 14, 2017 26 Comments
The magazine GQ has named former quarterback Colin Kaepernick its citizen of the year since becoming a "powerful symbol of activism and resistance" since he took a knee during the national anthem to protest racial injustice and police brutality. GQ said that this action has put Kaepernick in the same company of Jackie Robinson, the man who courageously broke the color barrier in baseball and had to endure ACTUAL racial injustice and brutality. Or Muhammad Ali, who protested the Vietnam War and refused to serve when he was drafted, which forced boxing to lock him out. EXCUSE ME?

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 12, 2017 18 Comments
I once noted that with the election of President Trump, a new era for Alpha Males began. However, social justice warriors who want to lead the #Resistance charge against our current president are targeting "toxic masculinity" in the same way they used the smear "era of greed" against President Ronald Reagan. The crusade is not working and is poisoning the political and cultural environments. Today, in particular, I want to look at the entertainment industry.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 11, 2017 28 Comments
This year, the American press has suppressed news related to the near assassination of the Republican congressional baseball team by a Bernie Sanders supporter and the apparently brutal beating of Senator Rand Paul by a neighbor whose Facebook pages are filled with anti-Trump messages. In this environment, it is no wonder that Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, who has rolled back many toxic climate change regulations, feels the need to direct his agency's dollars to his own security.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on November 11, 2017 37 Comments
No, this isn't an Onion article.  Facebook has a new pilot program aimed at protecting users from having their nude bodies plastered all over Facebook . . . by requiring that you upload a photo of your nude body to Facebook. They will then "hash" your nakedness (turn it into a unique code); once this is done, your hashed image (now code, not a pic of you in all your glory) will then be flagged and refused upload permissions on Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram. Facebook's "intimate safety" pilot is currently only available in Australia. Facebook writes:
We don’t want Facebook to be a place where people fear their intimate images will be shared without their consent. We’re constantly working to prevent this kind of abuse and keep this content out of our community. We recently announced a test that’s a little different from things we’ve tried in the past. Even though this is a small pilot, we want to be clear about how it works.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on November 11, 2017 33 Comments
George Takei's condescending diatribes and holier-than-thou attitude make him absolutely insufferable.  He gives the impression that he sees himself as someone above all others and that from his lofty perch he has the proper perspective from which to judge and condemn we mere mortals.  It's this attitude that has made the sexual assault allegations of a former male model blow up the internet. It helps of course that the allegations themselves are somewhat shocking, but the social media Schadenfreude is palpable.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 11, 2017 11 Comments
California's officials have been worried that tourists may contract Hepatitis A as a result of being exposed during the outbreak that has hit the state's homeless community. It appears that their fears have been realized, as two concert goers from Utah were struck with the disease that appears to have its origin in San Diego.
Three friends from Salt Lake City visited San Diego in early August for the Metallica concert at Petco Park. Two of them unknowingly brought home an unwelcome souvenir.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 10, 2017 23 Comments
As Fuzzy noted when Alexandria's famous Christ Church removed the plaque honoring George Washington (a founding member of that institution):
First, they came for the Confederate flag, but I didn’t fly a Confederate flag, so I did not speak out.  Then they came for Confederate statues, but I didn’t feel strongly about Confederate statues, so I did not speak out.  Then they came for statues of George Washington...
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