Your reading material from the weekend: 1. In a New Yorker essay this week, Jeff Toobin discusses the Sotomayor pick and the way discussions about diversity and representation on the court have changed. There used to be seats allocated based on geography, and there was a designated “Catholic” seat; the current Court boasts 6 Catholic Read More
The first presidential debate is Friday. (photo from The Big Picture blog.) Some folks are Cali are worried that Prop 8 — the ballot measure that would amend the state’s constitution to ban gay marriage —- could get a boost from the large numbers of black people hitting the polls to vote for Obama.* The Read More
Yesterday was by far our little blog’s busiest day ever. Kinda amazing, since there wasn’t an update. I couldn’t figure out why. Stacia pointed out that Thomas Beatie, that man who happens to be with child, was on Oprah yesterday. Apparently, going into yesterday, we were one of the top sites for this guy via Read More
Is Toni Morrison the new arbiter of wisdom? According to the Big O, she is. We guess eloquence, poise, and a Pulitzer entitle you to intuit people’s mettle, rework the definitions of adjectives, and knight your favorite presidential candidate with the scepter of the wise. In just the kind of hype-raising speech* you’d expect as Read More
It’s been 2.5 weeks since The Great Debaters opened nationwide. To date, the weeper’s only made $22,013,765 domestically, despite tireless promotion, including a semi-constant barrage of trailer airings (at least on BET, during Oprah, and at various intervals during your favorite primetime rerun). Why is it performing so poorly? I know I, for one, expected Read More
We kinda called this a month ago: Oprah has pissed off some of her fans by endorsing Obama. What we (naively) didn’t call: they’re mad at her for endorsement because they say it’s just because he’s black. (C’mon, white folks. Really? Ugh.) Oh, yeah. Oprah’s homie Maya Angelou endorsed Hillary Clinton. Also, she likes Butterfingers. Read More
This cat is like that crazy-ass uncle you have to placate by nodding and smiling uncomfortably at during Thanksgiving dinner. He’s longwinded and perpetually irate, and while he runs for office like clockwork — for president in 2000, Senate in 2004, and again for president in 2008 — though he never, ever wins. His inclusion Read More
