I am perpetually fascinated by the way that “medieval” is code for barbaric, backwards, savage, and the like. The phrase “get medieval” seems to have originated (or at least moved into widespread use) as a result of Pulp Fiction, in which Ving Rhames’ character, after being freed by Bruce Willis’ character, tells his rapist that…
According to a report from NBC New York (also covered in Jezebel, and thanks to my friend K. for the story tip), a woman with Multiple Sclerosis was gang raped in a warehouse in New Jersey. She fell asleep on the bus (she is on a narcotic for pain), woke up in Trenton, left the…
This is my 200th post on the blog. It’s not a happy one. As long-time readers know, my work on the Ethan Saylor case led me to coin the phrase the “cult of compliance.” This phrase allows me to link diverse moments in which authority figures respond to non-compliance with egregious acts of violence and place…
Emirates Airlines First Class Cabin I don’t like falling into the admin vs faculty dialectic. My administration may not share the perspective of an individual faculty member, but that’s by design. I trust them. I have a brother who has been the chair of a big department at a big public university and is currently…
Happy Sunday! Last night I played a fun show at the Irish American Heritage Center in north Chicago, and this morning I have homemade quiche for breakfast a nice cup of coffee. Life is good. Let’s review the week. A lot of the talk this week focused on my essay in the Chronicle and the reaction…
“”It is amazing what celebrity can do if you do it with 100 percent good intention and heart.” – Jenny McCarthy on Oprah. In 1956, the Polio Vaccine was new and controversial. Then the March of Dimes decided to make the vaccine a major part of its campaign and leveraged its celebrity connections to the…
Today is World Down Syndrome Day, chosen because 3/21 reflects the three 21st chromosomes that mark the genetic condition Trisomy-21, also known as Down syndrome. It’s a day about awareness and you will, if you’re lucky, see lots and lots of cute pictures of kids and adults with Down syndrome. Here’s a cute picture of…
Updates below including a comment that the whole concentration camp thing is just “water under the bridge. On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, in Minneapolis, a group of people held a Nazi-themed dinner at a German restaurant in Northeast Minneapolis. It turns out that they were German-themed WW2 re-enactors. A member of the group, Jon…
Last week I published a CNN essay on rape culture. It was reasonably widely read – some tens of thousands of people at least, 1000 comments, 7400 shares, hundreds of tweets. I think I did a pretty good job. And then I braced for impact. When I wrote about Jenny McCarthy last summer, I got…
A few weeks ago a friend alerted me to a job ad for a Renaissance/Early Modern English professor at Texas A&M – Kingsville (TAMUK). The job summary read: PROVIDE EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE. I reacted (with some hyperbole) with a blog piece about why the retail model of customer service, in particular, didn’t serve the students…