Category Archives: politics

That Man is an Enabler

commercials, greenparty, politics, rhetoric, television 2010.08.11 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

Recently one of my friends sent a tweet out, asking what we, her Twitter followers, thought was the greatest television commercial of all time. As someone who was lucky enough to live through the middle and late 1990s, that last period of popular culture that had so much going for it, my immediate response was the landmark Orlando Jones “Make 7-Up Yours” spots, commercials that endure to this day. Now that I’ve thought longer about it, though, I think there is one commercial that stands…

Be the Change You Seek

greenparty, kucinich, politics, rhetoric 2010.08.10 Sean Shannon 1 Comment

Gibbs clashes with the “political left” over criticism of Obama (Yahoo! News) Robert Gibbs was perhaps the first harbringer of the realization so many on the left feel now. With Barack Obama freshly installed as President, Gibbs delivered his first press conference from the White House Press, and after all the rhetoric of change in Washington, of hope that things would get better, Gibbs deflected question after question, giving half-answers if he bothered to answer at all. It was the exact same behaviour we had…

Equality Will Not Be Denied

glbt, politics, rhetoric, transgender 2010.08.04 Sean Shannon 1 Comment

Judge overturns Calif. gay marriage ban (AP via Yahoo! News) It is one of the most (in)famous videos of its era. Freshly installed as the governor of Alabama, George Wallace stands before a cheering crowd during his inaugural address to the state and declares, in a booming voice, that in Alabama there will be “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” It’s hard to call it the most galling video of the time, in the face of white police officers turning fire hoses on young African-Americans,…

Think of the Children

politics, teaching, work 2010.08.03 Sean Shannon 1 Comment

The Case Against Summer Vacation (time.com) Last month when I wrote my “Open Letter to Retail Stores” about stores putting up back-to-school displays waytoo early in the summer and depressing children, one of my friends in NorthCarolina wrote back to tell me that many schools there are operating on a year-round basis, staggering student terms so that some students were starting school in July. I talked with another North Carolinean about this, and although the economic advantage of keeping classrooms operating the whole year is…

Context

politics, rhetoric, teaching 2010.07.21 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

I face something of a double bind in my teaching career, because generally English instructors at the college level are expected to focus on one particular area of English, such as composition, or business writing, or creative writing, or some field of literature. There’s no question that I get the most enjoyment out of teaching creative writing, because it’s basically an excuse to hang out with all of the coolest students on campus in an atmosphere where we meet as fellow artists. At the same…