Kathleen Geier

In honor of Pride Day, I’m posting this YouTube of the great British post-punk band The Raincoats performing (along with The Slits’ Viv Albertine) their classic cover of The Kinks song, “Lola.” “Lola” is a song that’s pretty damn queer to begin with, but The Raincoats’ version adds mindblowing new levels of queerness to it. […]

I mentioned child care in my previous post and I want to take the opportunity to expand what I had to say there. A universal child care system is one of the big missing pieces of the unfinished feminist revolution. A big new social program doesn’t appear to be on even the most distant expanses […]

I suppose I should weigh in, albeit belatedly, on Anne-Marie Slaughter’s Atlantic cover article on “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.” Some thoughts: 1. First of all, what Rebecca Traister said: “We should immediately strike the phrase ‘have it all’ from the feminist lexicon and never, ever use it again.” 2. Secondly, no more […]

Almost certainly, the most important political story in the country that will occur next week will be the Supreme Court’s ruling on the constitutionality Affordable Care Act. It’s supposed to come down on Monday or Thursday, and the activist lists I’m on are abuzz with plans to take to the streets once the verdict is […]

Last night, a jury found the odious Jerry Sandusky guilty of 45 out of 48 sexual abuse charges. In related news, yesterday Monsignor William J. Lynn, a former aide to the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua of Philadelphia, was found guilty of child endangerment charges, for his role in covering up the crimes of pedophile priests. […]

It’s a slow news day, so I decided to write about something that I’ve meaning to get to for a while: the best new blogs and websites that I’ve discovered over the past year. I’ll start with the two of the new kids on the block that is the left blogosophere: Charlie Pierce, who blogs […]

This past week, the U.S. Depart of Commerce published an interesting report about the importance of the manufacturing sector for the U.S. economy. Manufacturing, says the report: is a cornerstone of innovation in our economy: manufacturing firms fund most domestic corporate research and development (R&D), and the resulting innovations and productivity growth improve our standard […]

I’ve made it a habit to keep track of the New York Times’ “Most E-Mailed” articles list, because the list provides a fascinating window into the dreams, obsessions, and (especially) the anxieties of middle-class Americans. Currently, the most-emailed article is this piece, about how the ever-escalating cost of college combined with steep cuts in student […]

In honor of Mother’s Day, I’m going to post one of my all-time favorite “mama” songs, Dolly Parton’s “Coat of Many Colors.” Dolly wrote this song, btw. She’s penned some real beauties in her time, but this one is surely one of the most moving. And I just adore Dolly — who doesn’t? Happy Mother’s […]

The must-read op-ed in today’s morning papers is this piece in the New York Times, on “The Human Disaster of Unemployment.” Interestingly, it’s co-authored by two economists who normally do not agree on very much: Dean Baker, from the left-wing Center for Economic and Policy Research, and Kevin Hassett, from the right-wing American Enterprise Institute. […]