Crossposted from Tikkun Daily by Eli Zaretsky Since its appearance on September 17, 2011 Occupy Wall Street has transformed the surface of political discourse in America. Few can argue that its all-too-telling slogans, dramatizing the contradiction between the interests of the 99%, and those of the 1%, have given an essentially rudderless president the overall approach likely [...]

By Karen Charman on Feb 10, 2012 WhatWhatWhy.comWhat if you were promoting an industry that had the potential to kill and injure enormous numbers of people as well as contaminate large areas of land for tens of thousands of years? What if this industry created vast stockpiles of deadly waste but nevertheless required [...]

Written by the ACLU for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post. By “Dara:”  Due to concerns about job security the author of this post has chosen to write under a pseudonym. Lately the water cooler conversations at my religiously-affiliated [...]

A recent poll revealed that while women plan their holiday gifts in advance, men often buy them at the gas station on the way to a family gathering. So it is no wonder that men’s Valentine’s Day gifts are often as inappropriate as their Christmas and birthday gifts. Here are some mistakes men repeatedly [...]

America just got rickrolled. There we were last week, innocently partaking in the annual testosterone-fest that is the Super Bowl, when we were treated to an ad featuring a group of supposed auto mechanics lamenting that they never voted for the union they’re in. But look closely. One of these “mechanics” is sporting a gold watch, [...]

By Russ Baker on Feb 2, 2012 (WhoWhatWhy.com)Is Twitter (a) a leading vehicle for freedom movements, or (b) primed to control and shut down open discourse throughout the world? This question emerged recently when we learned that the global messaging service was planning to abide by the rules of each country in terms of content it carries. [...]

While the Arizona state legislature moves along two bills that will legally place guns and Bibles into public school classrooms, one Mexican American Studies teacher approached Tucson Unified School District administrators today with a simple request on the eve of the state’s centennial celebrations: Release the locked up Mexican American Studies textbooks, so Tucson children [...]

We believe that bank lobbies need to be violated quickly.  By "bank lobby" we mean the entry-spaces, the quiet, clean theaters that radiate outward from the bank’s power, with the secret vaults and super computers at the center.  These fore-rooms secure the control of consumers, reducing our ability to influence the institutions, which are killing [...]

Written by Editor-in-Chief Jodi Jacobson for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post. This week, on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Obama campaign senior advisor David Axelrod signaled that the White House, having  finally decided to include coverage of birth control as part [...]

Written by Eesha Pandit and Steph Herold for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post. Melissa is 26 years old. She has a husband serving in the U.S. military overseas and a young daughter with numerous special health care needs. When [...]