Culture & Media news

• Blue wave collapsing? Early voting shows GOP outpacing Dems in key states

  22-10-2018 23:21
  
  This looks like another sign that the highly-anticipated blue wave could disappoint next month if it arrives at all. NBC News has looked at early voting data (provided by a company called TargetSmart) in eight states and found that GOP-affiliated voters are outpacing Democratic voters in seven of those.
  GOP-affiliated voters have surpassed Democratic-affiliated ones in early voting in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Montana, Tennessee and Texas, the data showed.
  Only in Nevada have Democrati
  
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• A resurrected Roy Orbison is now back in concert

  22-10-2018 22:41
  
  Roy Orbison thrilled a Los Angeles crowd last month with haunting renditions of his favorite hits such as ‘Only the Lonely’ and ‘Candyman.’
  It was quite a striking performance because, as you may recall, Roy died 30 years ago of a heart attack.
  Yet, there he was with a live orchestra, rising out of the stage in a dark Wiltern Theatre with his thick dark shades and iconic guitar and that smooth, emotive voice that sold millions of copies of “Oh, Pretty Woman,”
  
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• PSA from Amnesty International: Prince Charming might grab you by the p*ssy while you’re sleeping

  22-10-2018 22:01
  
  We’ve reached the point where the moral panics happen so often and so quickly that I no longer bother asking where they came from. Keira Knightley and Kristen Bell said something about Disney princesses and #MeToo, and suddenly there’s a cartoon online of a prince finger-raping a sleeping princess, and … how … why …
  Never mind. It’s fine. I don’t want to know. If this is what the news-cycle gods are giving us today then we accept it and thank them for
  
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• Bernie Sanders on the blue wave: ‘I don’t believe it’

  22-10-2018 21:21
  
  Senator Bernie Sanders is campaigning for House Democrats, hoping that the party will pick up enough seats to take back the House next month. But in an interview with the Hill today, Sanders said he’s not a believer in the blue wave that the left has been predicting for months. He believes control of the House is very much up in the air at this point:
  “I know a lot of people talk about this blue wave and all that stuff, but I don’t believe it,” Sanders told “Rising&
  
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• Judge to Avenatti: Pay the $4.85M you owe former law-firm attorney; Update: Evicted after check bounced?

  22-10-2018 20:41
  
  Enjoying the luxe life? Stiffing creditors and battling the IRS? I’m torn after reading this exposé from the Daily Beast as to whether it paints a picture of presidential-candidate disqualification … or front-runner status. Hey, it worked in 2016 …
  That strategy is off to a bad start, though, in an important — and costly, to Michael Avenatti — update today:LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles judge orders Stormy Daniels' lawyer Michael Avenatti to
  
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• “He’s getting away with murder”: Top Hillary crony okay with harassing Mitch McConnell in restaurants

  22-10-2018 20:01
  
  All the garbage people. Where do they all come from?
  Philippe Reines is a special strain. Reporters know him well for his … combativeness, shall we say, as one of Hillary’s most prominent flacks, but every now and then the public gets a glimpse. He’s the one who seized on the news in May that Donald Trump Jr’s family was breaking up as a reason to tweet at him that his wife must have been fantasizing about an old boyfriend when she was in bed with him. That was gross eno
  
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• NBC: Twitter is revealing that journalists are mostly left-wing

  22-10-2018 19:21
  
  Dylan Byers has a piece for NBC News which argues that Twitter is a “minefield” for journalists. Why? Because it often unintentionally reveals that so many of them are left-wing. Byers kicks off the piece with a look at a recent tweet from Politico Editor-in-chief John Harris. I wrote about this story last week. In case you missed it, Harris tweeted this:Thought that job had been filled….. https://t.co/35GUSXGhWU
  — John F. Harris (@harrispolitico) October 17, 2018Harris
  
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• More WSJ/NBC poll: Battleground voters favor Kavanaugh confirmation — by double digits

  22-10-2018 18:41
  
  Wonder no more at the Kavanaugh Effect. To follow up on the previous post regarding Donald Trump’s rebound in popularity after Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation, NBC digs a little deeper into the numbers in the new poll from its partnership with the Wall Street Journal. It finds voters diffident on Kavanaugh himself but a thin plurality in favor of his confirmation — a change in direction from other polling over the past month:
  Overall, Kavanaugh remains underwater on personal fav
  
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• NBC/WSJ poll: Don’t look now, but … here comes Trump

  22-10-2018 18:01
  
  Remember when Donald Trump’s widespread unpopularity would fuel a blue wave in the midterms? Trump’s still underwater on job approval, but a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll puts Trump at his best rating as president yet, 47/49. Republican interest in the election continues to rise, with both parties hitting a new record for midterm engagement:
  Voter interest in the midterm elections has surged to records within both parties, helping to drive up President Trump’s approval
  
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• The Beto O’Rourke “YMCA” flash mob

  22-10-2018 17:21
  
  If they’re this excited now, imagine how excited they’d be if he’d led in a single poll taken this year.
  I must say, although this is an affront to God and man I prefer this sort of mob to the usual snarling leftist horde chasing Republicans out of restaurants. (Slightly prefer.) And if you’re of the opinion that Beto is Obama 2.0 — minus the senatorial victory — this clip is another data point in your favor. Both men inspired their fans to literally sing thei
  
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• Those millennials again: Driving major changes in healthcare for convenience

  22-10-2018 16:41
  
  Primary care doctors may be in. But their patients are not.
  Seems the impatience of millennial patients is driving a major change in American healthcare.
  Those 83 million Americans born between 1981 and 1996, by far the nation’s largest age cohort, are turning away from primary healthcare doctors in favor of walk-in medicine at the growing number of urgent care offices across the country.
  As with the explosion of online banking, 24-hour groceries and even Uber, the drive behind the movemen
  
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• Rick Scott's Administration Lied About State Officials' Role In Deadly Bridge Collapse: Report

  22-10-2018 16:06
  The Florida Department of Transportation is still not giving a straight story about the FIU bridge collapse that killed six people. After March's tragic collapse of a pedestrian bridge at Florida International University that killed six people and injured nine others, and subsequent federal fines of contractors over "serious" safety violations, Gov. Rick Scott's administration was quick to absolve itself of blame.According to the governor's office, the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT)
  
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• Warren: I took the DNA test to restore faith in government, or something

  22-10-2018 16:01
  
  Of all the possible takes Elizabeth Warren could have given about her catastrophic DNA test, this … is certainly one of them. In a debate with challenger Geoff Diehl last night, the incumbent senator claimed that she took her now infamous genetic study because American faith in government is “at an all-time low.”
  What did she want to do — break the record by digging it deeper?She was asked by a moderator why she had said, in March, that no DNA test was needed to prove sh
  
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• Roger Waters Adapts and Narrates Igor Stravinsky’s Theatrical Piece, The Soldier’s Story

  22-10-2018 16:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  Roger Waters has always had an ego to match the size of his musical ambitions, a character trait that didnt help him get along with his Pink Floyd bandmates. But it gave him the confidence to write daring operatic albums like The Wall and stage the massive theatrical shows for which the band became well-known. He's a natural storyteller, eager to use music to communicate not only trenchant political critique, but the emotional lives of characters caught up in the machinations of warmongers
  
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• Trump: “National emergy” as second caravan on way from Honduras to demand entry to US

  22-10-2018 15:21
  
  If 7,000 migrants marching toward the US border can’t break through, perhaps reinforcements will help. Both Fox News and the Associated Press report that a second caravan of illegal immigrants has formed in Honduras and has already crossed into Guatemala. They’re hoping to catch up to the main group:
  As the massive migrant caravan pushes toward the southern U.S. border, a second group of about 1,000 people from Honduras is rushing to join the main group — which reportedly has s
  
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• Roger Stone Pathetically Tries to Walk Back His Prior Implication He Has Dirt on Trump as Mueller Closes In

  22-10-2018 15:13
  Stone boasted he would never "roll" on the president. Now he's trying to claim that doesn't mean he has info he could "roll" on in the first place. One of the members of President Donald Trump's inner campaign circle who has thus far avoided criminal charges is Roger Stone, a longtime Republican operative going back to the Nixon years who worked on getting Trump elected in 2016.But that does not mean he isn't a focus of special counsel Robert Mueller's attention. Indeed, per the Washington Post,
  
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• Here's Why the Blue Wave Runs Through Texas — And White Evangelical Women

  22-10-2018 14:46
  These faint stirrings of discontent among white evangelical women in Texas are connected to larger questions about class and theology.Eyes are locked on Texas. And deep in its heart are white evangelicals who could be part of a blue wave many hope will wash over that red state to carry Ted Cruz far out to sea.  In tight race between Cruz and his energetic Democratic Party opponent Beto O’Rourke, New York Times reporter Elizabeth Dias suggests that white evange
  
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• Feeling the urge to protest? Then, you’re most likely a liberal woman

  22-10-2018 14:41
  
  If you’re one of those citizens still with the conscientious stamina to follow the daily news flood (and you must be if you’re reading this), you could be forgiven for thinking Americans protest pretty much anything and everything in existence — the National Anthem, guns, pipelines, flag, fake news, police, Congress, you-name-it. We even have protests of protests.
  It turns out, however, that only a small minority of us even consider protesting something. Hard to believe probabl
  
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• Did Saudis bring in a Khashoggi body double to cover up planned murder?

  22-10-2018 14:01
  
  If true, this elaborate ruse pretty much kills off the “fistfight” story — not that too many people bought that one in the first place. Turkish officials have video surveillance of a man leaving the Saudi consulate and milling around Istanbul’s tourist district in Jamal Khashoggi’s clothing, but it’s not Khashoggi, CNN’s Clarissa Ward reports. It’s one of the 15 Saudis who entered the consulate two hours before Khashoggi, and who appears later not
  
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• Why Read Waiting For Godot?: An Animated Case for Samuel Beckett’s Classic Absurdist Play

  22-10-2018 13:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  Iseult Gillespies latest literature themed TED-Ed lessonWhy should you read Waiting For Godot?poses a question thats not too difficult to answer these days.
  The meaning of this surprisingly sturdy Absurdist play is famously open for debate.
  Author Samuel Beckett told Roger Blin, who directed and acted in its first production at the Théâtre de Babylon in 1953, that all he knew for certain was that the two main characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wore bowler hats.(Another thing he fel
  
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• The Big Lebowski at 20: Jeff Bridges, John Goodman & Steve Buscemi Reunite to Discuss the Coen Brothers’ Beloved Film

  22-10-2018 10:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  The Big Lebowski came out 20 years ago. Statements of that kind are often preceded by the question of whether you want to feel old, but this one wouldn't have quite the same effect: on some level, The Big Lebowski feels as old as, or maybe even older than, cinema itself. In their half-hour conversation looking back at the film and its legacy, NBC's Harry Smith asks actors John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, and Jeff Bridges, better known to the movie's legions o
  
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• Beware the culture warriors of social media ― John Lloyd - Malay Mail

  22-10-2018 09:41 via malaymail.com
  Malay Mail
  Beware the culture warriors of social media ― John Lloyd
  Malay Mail
  OCTOBER 23 ― The news media in the Western world remain dominated by newspapers, magazines and broadcasters still known as the mainstream. The most vivid proof of their continued reign over public opinion is in the figure of US President Donald ...
  
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• One Key Congressman's Bold Plan to End Federal Marijuana Prohibition Next Year

  22-10-2018 08:18
  What a difference a midterm election can make. Last week, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) unveiled a plan for a Democratically-led House to push through federal marijuana legalization by the end of 2019. In aneight-page memo to the House Democratic leadership laid out his roadmap to ending Reefer Madness.Blumenauer isn't just any old congressman. The longtime stalwart marijuana reformer is the founder of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus and a leading voice in the fight to bring marijuana out of the
  
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• JOHN LLOYD: How the culture wars are reshaping the media - Rand Daily Mail

  22-10-2018 07:33 via businesslive.co.za
  Rand Daily Mail
  JOHN LLOYD: How the culture wars are reshaping the media
  Rand Daily Mail
  The news media in the Western world remain dominated by newspapers, magazines and broadcasters still known as the mainstream. The most vivid proof of their continued reign over public opinion is in the figure of U.S. President Donald Trump, whose ...and more »
  
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• Dear conservatives (and liberals)…be better

  22-10-2018 02:01
  
  Permit me, if you will, a hypothetical exercise. A controversial politician is invited by an organization or political candidate to speak at an event or is out for dinner. The figure’s pending appearance is mentioned in the local media – becoming a rather hot topic for opponents – or gets passed around social media. Protests and disruptions occur sometimes ruining dinner. Supporters of said controversial politician act surprised, while opponents claim the said figure is simply
  
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• A Psychologist Explains Why So Many Rich People Are Preparing for the End of Days

  22-10-2018 01:22
  The business elite are preparing for doomsday. Many of the world’s richest seem to earnestly believe that some kind of apocalyptic “event” is coming, and have prepared accordingly. You might have read about this before — such as in the New Yorker’s deep dive back in January 2017 — but billionaire doomsday preppers are back in the news again thanks to a new viral article penned by professor and media theorist Douglas
  
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• The Alaska Governor’s race takes another turn for the strange

  22-10-2018 00:31
  
  Remember that crazy story out of Alaska last week? The state’s Lieutenant Governor, Byron Mallott (D), just up and resigned his office without anyone knowing it was going to happen. He apologized for making “inappropriate comments” to someone, but nobody seemed to know what he said, who he said it to or where or when it had happened.At the time I concluded that it wasn’t going to have much of an effect on the Governor’s election because his boss, Governor Bill Walke
  
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