Category Archives: freespeech

Time for an Unquiet (Pussy) Riot

freespeech, music, politics, rhetoric Leave a comment

Pussy Riot: Band Members’ Conviction a Blow to Free Expression (Huffington Post) Musicians being arrested for performing material deemed “obscene” was, in large part, responsible for my becoming such a political animal over twenty years ago. Music has always played a huge role in my life, and as I was growing up in the 1980s faced with a nauseating pop music scene, hair metal and a huge wave of untalented pre-packaged teen acts, I turned to rap music for a refuge. I wish I could…

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The V Word

freespeech, politics, rhetoric, sex Leave a comment

Michigan lawmaker to help perform “Vagina Monologues” (AP via Google) Lost amid the understandable silliness surrounding the reaction to Michigan Republicans forbidding Democratic Michigan State Representative Lisa Brown  to speak on the Michigan House floor, due to her use of the word “vagina” in a floor speech against an anti-abortion bill, is a larger and much more serious problem that has been going on in Michigan for over a year now. Bear with me talking about that for a while, and I promise I’ll talk…

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Are You Ready For Some Hyperbole?

freespeech, politics, rhetoric, television Leave a comment

This past week ESPN pulled Hank Williams Jr.’s “Are You Ready for Some Football” song from its Monday Night Football telecast in response to Williams invoking Hitler when discussing President Obama on Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends. Originally cutting the song for only one week, ESPN later decided to ax the song from its broadcast altogether, although Williams has since claimed that he made the decision to pull the song himself after, in his words, “[ESPN] stepped on the Toes of the First Amendment…

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Gaga Over the War on Christmas

family, freespeech, politics, rhetoric, shopping Leave a comment

[For those of you who don’t follow my Twitter or Facebook, Mom’s been in the emergency room twice in the past forty-eight hours, first for a slipped disc and painful kidney stone and urinary tract infection, then again because the antibiotic they gave her for her UTI caused her heart to palpitate.  She appears to be doing better now, but I’m taking nothing for granted at this point, and needless to say this has me kind of rattled.  Not that losing Mom would ever be…

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Vuvuzelas Everywhere

freespeech, politics, rhetoric, sports 2 Comments

By this point most Americans have once again stopped pretending to be interested in soccer, and those who are still pretending will likely stop doing so in the next couple of weeks when the World Cup is over once and for all.  For those who think that this, this could be the time that America finally embraces soccer, I have one word for you: Curling.  Most of you forgot about that a couple of weeks after the Winter Olympics, didn’t you?  There are certain things…

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