culture
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How to Stop the Killing of All Our Children
Earlier this week I found myself on a flight to Atlanta so that I could stand in solidarity, as a father, with the parents of a murdered son. Like the few hundred others who gathered outside the Georgia state Capitol on a chilly Wednesday morning, I believed that I was seeking justice for the yet-to-be-explained…
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Here’s Megyn Kelly’s Kwanzaa Reading Assignment
It’s a shame that Fox News’ Megyn Kelly wasn’t on the air Thursday night to explain why she told her viewers Wednesday night that “Santa just is white,” so is Jesus, and “those are just facts.” She left that lump of coal in our stockings, and none of her panelists even bothered to question Kelly’s…
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Rich Teen’s Lenient Sentence Raises Questions About How to Handle Convicted Juveniles
The Texas county judge who sentenced 16-year-old “affluenza” sufferer Ethan Couch to one year of rehabilitation and 10 years of probation after he killed four people in a drunk-driving accident apparently has a tendency to hand down lenient sentences. According to News8, last year Tarrant County Judge Jean Boyd pushed for rehab in the case of…
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Sheriff’s Deputy Convicted of Voluntary Manslaughter in Virginia Shooting
Arlington, Va., Sheriff’s Deputy Craig Patterson was found guilty in the May death of Julian Dawkins, a shuttle driver for PBS’s Newshour program, the Washington Post reports. According to the news site, the jury was tasked with deciding whether Patterson, who was off-duty at the time, responded as a law-enforcement agent when the 22-year-old drunkenly…
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‘Fake’ Interpreter Has Faced Murder and Rape Charges
The man who caused a scandal with his fake sign language during Nelson Mandela’s memorial service was hiding more than anyone thought. The interpreter has faced charges of murder, rape, theft, breaking and entering, malicious damage to property and kidnapping, eNCA.com reports. The court file for the 2003 murder case was found “mysteriously empty,” so…
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Why Was My Black Ancestor Listed as a Slave Owner?
“I have traced my great-grandfather, Kinchen Bell, back on the 1850 Census Slave Schedule for Kentucky. He is listed in the slave owners’ column and indicated as being black. There is an adult female listed who I believe is his wife, my great-grandmother, Sarah. There are a number of minor children listed. When I went…
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Jon Stewart and Jessica Williams Go In on Megyn Kelly
The Daily Show comedians Jon Stewart and Jessica Williams had a field day with Fox News and one of its anchors, Megyn Kelly, over remarks she made about Santa and Jesus being historically and inarguably white. Stewart kicked off the segment reminding viewers that the real St. Nicholas was indeed from Greece, as Kelly and…
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Scandal Recap: The Book of Eli
Scandal is supposed to be all about Olivia Pope, and most weeks, it is: her difficulty with men, with women, with herself, with a glass of wine. She’s the show’s protagonist, the superhero. To show an episode without her would be like watching an episode of Batman without, well, Batman. But when we talk about…
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Prosecutors Won’t Retry Illinois Man Imprisoned 30 Years for Rape
Prosecutors have decided not to retry a man who was convicted more than 30 years ago for a rape he says he did not commit, the Associated Press reports. Stanley Wrice, now 59, was officially exonerated on Wednesday and the case completely closed when Cook County Judge Richard Walsh concluded Thursday, “The case is dismissed.”…
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1850s Prison Memoir of African American Is First of Its Kind
A rare manuscript discovered years ago in Rochester, N.Y., is believed to be the first recovered memoir written by a black prisoner, the New York Times reported. The memoir, dated 1858, was authenticated by Yale University to put in its Beineke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. “The Life and Adventures of a Haunted Convict, or…