Category > American Life
Can rich Americans save the environment? Grassroots devotees may respond with an emphatic "no thanks" to the wealthy's meddling. After all, perhaps more than many other social movements in America, environmentalism is hands-on; people find rinsing out their bottles and breaking down their cardboard wonderfully empowering. More to the point, many people would argue that consumerism — which makes some people very rich — and environmentalism have irreconcilable differences. But if your gut reaction is to think that getting rich …
| I suspect the vast majority of Americans feel roughly the same about IQ tests. We believe they measure something worth measuring, but we're not sure what. We find broad, sweeping claims linking intelligence to ethnicity and race disturbing. Yet a new book on intelligence helps us understand what IQ tests measure-and their significance-and is not shy about discussing the IQs of various ethnic groups. Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count (W.W. Norton, hardcover, 282 pp. …
Here are some statistics: in 2006, Latinos constituted 19% of America's school-age population; by 2025, 25% of students will be Latino; today, 48% of students in California are Latino. And here are some alarming trends: The vast majority of Latino students live in poor and dangerous neighborhoods, and are raised by parents who are the least-educated of any ethnic group, and speak little or no English. Here's a current book that addresses this situation: The Latino Education Crisis: The Consequences …
Those tired of tired arguments about immigration will want to pick up David Fitzgerald’s A Nation of Emigrants. Fitzgerald — an assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, San Diego — offers a study about immigration from the perspective of the country the immigrants left behind. This focus allows him to refreshingly avoid disingenuous claims that immigration helps Mexicans by giving them the jobs Americans don’t want, or arguments that race-bait those who dare speak out against illegal …
The Keystone Kops, Charlie Chaplin, the Bathing Beauties-these American icons helped define early twentieth-century American popular culture. But where did they come from? And why did they appear when they did? A new study helps us understand the forces that converged to give us the pleasure of these spectacles. That a reader will learn about much more than the Keystone Film Company (Keystone) by reading The Fun Factory: The Keystone Film Company and the Emergence of Mass Culture, by Rob …
Barack Obama won big while refusing (for the most part) to go negative. Perhaps he won precisely because he refused to attack his opponent, to “pick on an invalid,” as Ronald Reagan—in an alarmingly effective slam—backhandedly did to Michael Dukakis in the George H.W. Bush-Dukakis election year of 1988. Certainly Obama succeeded, in part, because he responded, in a typically dignified manner, when he himself was targeted—something Dukakis, and John Kerry after him, tragically did not do. We might be …
Like most Americans, I was taught that in passing the National Voting Rights Act of 1965, LBJ betrayed the South, and this region then folded itself, seemingly for good, into the arms of the GOP. So be it, was the Democrats’ response. Such, to their way of thinking, was the cross to bear for finally standing up to racist hicks. Yet, I could never quite reconcile this image of the racist South to my experience in the North, having grown …
Most Recent Arts Comments
Karen Vaccaro is a remarkable person as well as a dedicated performer. I couldn’t imagine a better night at theater!
The director should’ve added the wrinkle that the ban on dancing’s the only thing keeping Bomont from attracting the green/tech/jobs of the future!
Now that’s Class!
I have read several of her books and liked them. I guess because I’m not an overweight, lesbian, intersexed Jewish amputee with divorced parents I can’t comment on the offensiveness of some of her jokes.
You forgot to mention fat people. She made fun of obesity. And divorce. Children of divorce were lampooned, too. Jewish people. She hit on a lot of “groups.“ I fit into a number of them. If you didn’t like her speech you won’t like her books. If…
Lesbians: Anecdote about her mom being a lesbian, and getting her mom introduced to Rosie O’Donnell, and mom and Rosie talking about oral sex, and Weiner acting disgusted. She probably meant the disgust in a “don’t wanna hear about my mom’s vag” kind of way, but all…
Oh. Wow. What exactly did she say, Emma? Do you remember?
I went to this. In the first 5 minutes of her talk, she made fun of lesbians, intersexed children, and amputees. I was honestly surprised at how offensve she was—it was like she thought the Champaign Public Library was a venue for Last Comic Standing. I…
Theresa—are you speaking generally about that monologue, or did you attend the Friday night showing at UIUC?
Most Popular Arts Articles (60 days)
- Celebration Company prevails over predictable cliches in Ug!
- Be Okay: Author Jennifer Weiner in town on Sunday
- Book review: Keyhole Factory by William Gillespie
- Sirens in the Night brings local talent together
- The physical self in Hammie’s Recent Works
- The Little Dog Laughed a strange summer delight
- In dreams: Inception
- The man who taught us to hear
- The Little Dog Laughed, but not for long...
- A better Footloose
Most Recent Comments
Illinois has simply had no luck at all in these Mizzou games. None. I think maybe we’re do for a couple of bounces to go our way. If we get one or two (or sever or eight) breaks, I think it’s a win.
Jason, Savoy could easily join the CPL tax district, which is probably closer to most Savoy residents than the Tolono library is. But my impression is that Savoy residents as a whole don’t want to pay the cost of the CPL (Tolono’s library taxes are cheaper), even…
Sorry, but I am lagging behind on updates to the map. Also, some construction projects were delayed from their original start date. On a more positive note, I am putting together a map of haunted houses in Central Illinois. I have a few plotted already, and I…
I’ve never gotten the privilege of all the services CPL cardholders get. I just want to be able to go out of my way to drive to the CPL to check out books, pay fines, maybe buy some coffee, and enjoy the library. None of those activities…
These days, there is more to using a library than checking out books. At one time, paying into the Lincoln Trails system probably would cover the expenses incurred by other libraries in the system. Now, with Internet, videos, coffee shops, wireless Internet hubs, etc., I suspect the…
(speaking as a Savoy resident) By paying taxes to support a member of the LTLS, we are paying our “fair share” to use any LTLS library—Tolono, Champaign, Urbana, etc. This is how library systems work. The 6% of CPL’s circulation represented by Tolono users is NOT significant…
I read Timbo’s argument. I think the key word is “speculating.“
I would be interested to hear more about the “word on the street”—how are individual hauling companies fulfilling their promise to recycle?
Timbo makes a smart, sound argument. Reread it.
I joined on 09-09-09 after living here over a year, and having to listen to my dad tell me how his best friend is, like, #27 or something crazy like that, and how said friend never lived further than 50 feet from the Illini Inn while going…
And, I might add, no one is being prevented from using the Champaign library. They are just being asked to pay their fair share if they are going to use it as their primary library.
The equation is pretty simple here. If you want social services, then pay the taxes required to run those social services. These things only work if everyone puts in their fair share. As a heavy user of the Champaign Library, I say bravo to this new policy.
Curtis Orchard is always good for an hour or three, especially if you have rugrats.
What is the increased marginal cost of serving a resident of Savoy or Mahomet? I suspect negligible. What is the increased revenue to be realized by this new policy? I suspect very little. Aside from these financial aspects, what are the most probable results from this new…
Looks like you are also all members of the killer sideburns club.
Thanks for the article, Ben. I was not familiar with this band until now and even though I won’t be able to attend the show on Friday they are now on my radar. A *good* jam band is hard to find, and these folks appear to fill…
Nice article, love the Dead quote in the beginning. If they can get down here to Central FL I’ll definitely be heading out to the show. Some of my friends have finally stopped wincing when I say “jam band.“ I’ve now tried my best at more descriptive…
@Annie: Yeah, my bad. That was the best part! Drinking + memory exercises = fun @Rob: According to Ask the English Teacher, “My dictionary says ‘drunk’ is an archaic past tense of ‘drink.‘“ We’re all about the new grammar around here.
Katie, have the residents of Savoy and Tolono thought about having their taxes raised a little to help their public library expand? That’s a possibility for them. And then everybody wins.
good call on that Herring recording, Josh. Love that version of Exit Music….here’s a clip of the Cinco de Mayo show (from about six months prior). As I recall, this Shakedown went on for roughly a half hour, while getting into the Trampled Underfoot jam in the…
Most Popular Articles (14 days)
- Camp Rantoul Report: August 20, 2010
- Withershins: the hardest working band in Champaign
- Champaign to close recycling drop-off center
- Pygmalion schedule changes, Emeralds and new Erin Fein project added
- The Burlington Coat Factory Mosque
- Meet the new blog on the block
- CU Pride Fest review
- Flatlander fundraising off to a tasty start
- The right thing changes from state to state
- Garbage doesn’t just “go away”
Recent Searches
- 1592 (7 Results)
- Susan Toalson (3 Results)
- Gabe (4 Results)
- Bond (97 Results)
- Bond (97 Results)
- Gabe (4 Results)
- bond (97 Results)
- bond (97 Results)
- dan schreiber (34 Results)
- gillespie (129 Results)
- Men Against Sexual Violence MASV (1 Results)
- 8684 (1 Results)
- Men Against Sexual Violence MASV (1 Results)
- great cover up doug hoepker (13 Results)
- great cover up (589 Results)
- C-U Circle (32 Results)
- 4130 (1 Results)
- elsinore (123 Results)
- elsinore (123 Results)
- ryan groff elsinore (35 Results)
Facebook
Twitter
Full Site
Events Calendar
The main character’s name is actually Lisbeth, in case you want to correct.