Kathleen Geier

Apparently, the ghastly, tragic and entirely preventable deaths of coal miners are some very twisted person’s idea of wholesome family entertainment: Alone in the darkness . . . the only sound is the pulsing of your heart as the searing heat slowly boils you alive . . . It was reported to be the worst […]

Yesterday, I mentioned that two of the iconic women of punk/alternative rock are back, with new bands and strong new albums that follow serious life crises. But while Kathleen Hanna’s record with the Julie Ruin is a joyous, life-affirming affair, Kim Gordon embraces the angst. Her new band, Body/Head, consists of just her on guitar […]

Earlier this week, the New Republic’s Michael Schaffer published an immensely satisfying smackdown of the frustrating double standard the media tends to invoke when it comes to reporting about small towns. Culture war rules have firmly established that it’s fine for “real Americans” to slander cities as ungodly, anti-American dens of crime and iniquity. Yet […]

Jacobin’s Trish Kahle has written a fascinating essay about Fight for 15 — the wave of one-day strikes we’ve been seeing across the country by fast food and retail workers, who are demanding a $15 an hour minimum wage and the right to form a union without retaliation. Part of what makes the piece so […]

One possible benefit of the Affordable Care Act that has been surprisingly little discussed is its potential impact on America’s appallingly high infant mortality rate. But as Eduardo Porter reported earlier this week in the New York Times, some experts believe the ACA could have a powerful impact. There’s no question that America’s infant mortality […]

Last time I blogged here, I wrote about the frankly racist nature of the G.O.P.’s support of the government shutdown and its opposition to the ACA. And, as illustrated by the story Ed noted yesterday, some conservatives obviously can’t seem to stop themselves from regularly making grossly offensive racist comments in public — even when […]

In the last couple of months, two of the great divas of punk/alternative rock have each released an excellent, and fascinating, new album. Each of them experienced a life-changing crisis, which they each reacted to by going back to their musical roots. Yet the two records they created couldn’t be more of a contrast in […]

Psychologist Daniel Goleman has written a fascinating piece for today’s New York Times about social status and empathy. It seems that the richer and more powerful a person is, the less empathy he or she is likely to have for people who are lower in status: A growing body of recent research shows that people […]

A few links: — As Paul Krugman has pointed out, the new GOP talking point is that “the shutdown/debt ceiling confrontation isn’t just about Obamacare; it’s about curbing runaway spending growth and exploding debt.” — In case you’re dying to see Ted Cruz on CNN’s State of the Union talking about how changes to the […]

Today’s New York Times features an important, and frightening, editorial about the alarming growth in extreme poverty among the elderly. According to the Times: In analyzing the recent Census Bureau report on poverty, researchers at the National Women’s Law Center found that from 2011 to 2012, the rate of extreme poverty rose by a statistically […]