In recent years, measures have been introduced in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Texas, Illinois and, most recently, California to apply special taxes to strip clubs -- specifically to fund sexual assault services. Now, even if you aren't inclined to view erotic entertainment as the source of all evil, this might seem an appropriate aim -- who wants to argue against additional support for rape survivors? It would seem even more so when you consider politicians' and activists' repeated claims of solid scientific evidence showing a link between strip clubs -- specifically those that sell alcohol -- and sexual violence.

That is, until you look at the alleged proof.

The key study advocates point to is one commissioned by the Texas Legislature in 2009. But that very report states, "no study has authoritatively linked alcohol, sexually oriented business, and the perpetration of sexual violence." What's more, when I talked to Bruce Kellison, director of the Bureau of Business Research at the University of Texas at Austin, and one of the authors of the report, about the alleged link between strip clubs and sexual assault, he said, "That's not really what our study was trying to do."

Continue Reading...

But as Romney clumsily half-courts the Hispanic vote, conditions at our southern border are growing more dire. The brutal drug-related violence that has long gripped Mexico is on the rise. Two weeks ago, 49 bodies missing their heads, hands and legs were found near Monterey, Mexico.  A message left nearby indicated the Zetas cartel was responsible. One week earlier, 18 dismembered bodies were found in Guadalajara. One week before that, 23 bodies, with indications of torture, were found hanging from a bridge in Nuevo Laredo on the U.S. border. They are casualties of an apocalyptic drug war, a thriving human smuggling trade and, more broadly, a deeply dysfunctional relationship between the U.S. and Mexico.

Continue Reading...

For those of us who believe that there’s something seriously wrong with the Republican Party (and see Tom Mann and Norm Ornstein’s new book; see also my argument that the problem is not about how “conservative” they are, but about their radical style), the big question is whether anything can be done about it. American democracy needs two strong, solid political parties, but currently one of the parties is just a mess – incapable of making coherent policy when it’s in office, and dangerously obstructionist when it’s out of office.

Continue Reading...

When I arrived at this new private school in seventh grade, after my mom got a job teaching, I hoped Fred and I might be friends. We were both faculty brats, and the school catered to elite students from wealthy families.

But our similarities ended there. Fred was tall for an eighth grader, and he was clear-skinned and golden, with hair so light it seemed more than blond. I was short, stocky and pale. He wore clothing emblazoned with Hilfiger and Klein. I was perpetually clothed in hand-me-downs. People whispered that he smoked pot and felt up girls after school. I had changed schools so often I’d forgotten how to make friends.

Something about my incompetence made Fred furious. In the locker room after lacrosse, he would snap at my ankles with his stick until they turned bright red. One day during practice, he dropped any pretense of chasing after the grounded ball and simply rammed into me with all his force. My helmet disappeared; my sweaty gloves flopped on the ground.

Continue Reading...

With our first-ever private equity honcho running for president in an era of high unemployment and slow economic growth, it was always a foregone conclusion that this year's election campaign would include an appraisal of whether Mitt Romney's version of capitalism is good for America. It's a debate the culture has been passionately engaged in at least as far back as Oliver Stone's "Wall Street," and the battle lines are well-drawn. Is Bain Capital a parasitic corporate raider or an engine for lean-and-mean capitalist renewal? You get to make the call, and then you can go vote.

Facebook's botched IPO adds a new wrinkle. In contrast to Bain-style private equity wheeling-and-dealing, the Silicon Valley venture capital model for new firm creation has always enjoyed a much more positive public relations profile. Maybe it's a West Coast vs. East Coast thing, but conjuring up the likes of Intel or Apple or Google from thin air is a lot more sexy than swooping down on a troubled firm, brutally slashing costs and stripping assets, and then reselling for a huge profit a few years down the line.

Continue Reading...

Continue Reading...

Hey, you turkeys. Listen up. I need you to listen for five minutes. I'm going to impart a little wisdom. You can take it or leave it. For what it's worth, I'd rather you took it.

The advice is this: David Bowie's "Hunky Dory" is a perfect album, and, since perfect albums are a rare commodity, it is worthy of deep and repeated listenings.

I'm listening to "Hunky Dory" as I write this. How many times have I listened to this, my favorite record? Like a million? And it never gets old.

I discovered "Hunky Dory" by accident. I was a sad, lonely little kid. Eleven years old and obsessed with Joan Jett, another artist I imagine you kids would enjoy. Back then, the radio was still a real thing that people listened to, believed in and learned from. I stayed up past my bedtime one Saturday night during the Christmas holiday to listen to a weekly show called "The King Biscuit Flower Hour" featuring a concert by my secret girlfriend, Joan Jett. At the end of the set, she played a cover of a song that would forever change the course of my budding musical tastes, "Rebel Rebel." As it turned out, "Rebel Rebel" would never be one of my favorite Bowie tunes, but I could detect, within its lyric, a narrative voice to which I could relate. Like really relate.

Continue Reading...

Our hero, Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, has just finished taking down the Psychlo empire, which has ruled Earth for the past millennium and has dominated most of the known 16 universes for going on 300,000 years. Now Jonnie has to negotiate with the alien powers who are jockeying to fill the power vacuum left behind, and things aren’t looking so good for the human race.

Homo sapiens seem destined to suffer one of the more common fates of common folk after the end of totalitarian rule — war, chaos and brutal, if less total, exploitation at the hands of tyrants, oligarchs, warlords and military juntas.

Continue Reading...

Pretty much immediately upon the death of his father, Luke Russert inexplicably had a full-time broadcasting job, supplanting his part-time broadcasting job co-hosting a satellite radio sports talk show with James Carville. (That was a real thing that actually existed. Can you imagine a human who would want to listen to that?)

Continue Reading...

Activists calling for the site to shutter its adult classifieds section on the grounds that it promotes sex trafficking -- like New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof -- have seized on research from Advanced Interactive Media Group (AIM) showing that across a handful of sites carrying prostitution ads, 70 percent come from Backpage. Another significant finding from the organization is that the site's parent company, Village Voice Media, makes $22 million from such ads. Again and again, critics of the site trot out these, and similar, statistics drawn from AIM research -- but the organization’s latest study highlights just how far online prostitution spans beyond Backpage.

Continue Reading...

As I grew, I began to see "Star Wars" as a metaphor for so much – whether it was the natural depravity of man, or the redemption of man, or the relationship between a father and a son in Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. That relationship can be broken and redeemed over the course of the trilogy. I really related and connected with it, and it encapsulated a lot of what I want to teach my children – people make mistakes, and they can ultimately be redeemed, even if those mistakes seem egregious, you know, in Darth Vader's case. That there is a choice to be made between what side you choose in life. Our faith is a big part of our family, so the Force has special meaning for me. There's just so many things that I think my son would get, that I hope my son would get.

Continue Reading...

Continue Reading...

“This lawsuit is about one of America’s most cherished freedoms: the freedom to practice one’s religion without government interference,” opens the Notre Dame suit, which was filed Monday. “It is not about whether people have a right to abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization and contraception.”

Because the words “abortifacient” or “abortion inducing” sound so scary, the Notre Dame lawsuit makes sure to claim over and over again that, despite a political compromise and executive order specifically exempting abortion coverage from Affordable Care Act provisions, they are being forced to pay for abortion. It claims that “many contraceptives approved by the FDA that qualify under these guidelines cause abortions,” which is false on multiple levels: Even if you believe, as Catholic doctrine does but medical professionals do not, that fertilization, not implantation, constitutes pregnancy, the latest scientific research shows that there’s no evidence that emergency contraception prevents implantation.

Continue Reading...

After seven years on "SNL," Wiig said goodbye on Saturday night's season finale that will go down as one of the sweetest, most choked-up moments on the show since Steve Martin said goodbye to Gilda Radner on the day of her death almost exactly 23 years earlier.

Even without an official announcement, Wiig's twirly, teary departure is enough to make even the most casual fans of the show crank up the Adele and mainline a tub of Edy's Grand. It doesn't matter that fellow castmates Andy Samberg and Jason Sudeikis have reportedly moved on from the show as well. They leave behind established male cast members like Seth Meyers, Fred Armisen and Bill Hader. Wiig, on the other hand, blows a gaping hole in the show's female lineup. The 24-year-old Abby Elliott, who moves up the rung to the show's senior lady cast member, is now its biggest female star. But she's yet to display that versatility or command the clout that Wiig has. Kate McKinnon may yet bust out into full-blown "SNL" stardom, but she's only been on the show for five minutes.

Continue Reading...

As I was watching this episode, "Curriculum Unavailable,” I remember calmly thinking something like, “Huh. That would really explain Leonard.” The possibility that “Community” might be about to “St. Elsewhere” its audience ("St. Elsewhere" ended on the reveal that everything that had happened in the series had all taken place inside the mind of an autistic boy) was not particularly alarming to me. Group psychosis explained a lot about the show's extremely dark psychology, and, anyway, on “Community,” stranger things had happened.

Continue Reading...

Until age 26. I was in a faltering relationship with a man who loved hiking and camping, and who sincerely believed that I would love these activities too, if he could be my guide.

V was the first Indian-American I’d ever met who actually liked to camp. I’d always associated camping with white people, along with sunbathing and being grounded, but here was V at REI — testing compasses, lusting after tents — with a thrilled, drifting look in his eye. I kept thinking about a term that a friend and hiking enthusiast had once taught me — “poop trowel” — two words that returned to me now with great foreboding.

Continue Reading...

One thing made a difference: The actions of Lucie's father, Tim Blackman, who arrived in Tokyo to join his other daughter, Sophie, in publicizing the search and prodding the police. Richard Lloyd Parry, Tokyo bureau chief for the Times of London, covered the case as it unfolded, first over the course of several months while Lucie's whereabouts and abductor remained unknown, and finally for the six years it took to try the man accused of killing her, Joji Obara. The book Parry wrote about the case, "People Who Eat Darkness," is an exceptionally perceptive and nuanced look at a terrible crime, one that put nations, institutions and family members at odds, and often into bitter and toxic conflict.

Continue Reading...

It could be worse, I realized. I could live here.

Cold comfort, perhaps, but comfort nonetheless. And so, for providing the enforced monotony that only a dull road trip can provide, and the bleak void to which to compare my own relatively full life, I am grateful to the state of Nebraska. Nebraska has a special place in my heart.

It has no place, however, on a map of the United States.

Let me explain: California is a state. New York is a state. Texas, for the time being at least, is a state. And they deserve to be. They’re big, they’re boisterous — but most crucially, they’re populated. Thirty-seven million people live in California, four million in Los Angeles alone. New York is home to almost 20 million people. If California were a country, it would have the eighth largest economy in the world. If New York City were its own state, it would be the 12th largest — and in my humble New Yorker opinion, the best.

Continue Reading...

The silver, hand-cranked contraption is usually kept behind glass at Good Vibrations' Antique Vibrator Museum in San Francisco -- but staff sexologist Carol Queen made a rare exception. "This is very special," she whispered, unlocking the case and carefully pulling out Dr. Johansen's Auto Vibrator, a relic from 1904. The "auto" part is not so much: It was a two-person job, with her having to crank the device's handle to get it thrumming. Pressing my finger tips to its inch-wide circular platform of pleasure, I was pleasantly surprised by its power.

As I was by the two other vintage vibrators that I got to try out -- the White Cross Electric Vibrator from 1917, which has a pronged aperture that makes it seem like the ancestor of Jimmyjane's Form 2, and the Beautysafe Vibrator from the 1940s, which is reminiscent in look, feel and sound to a car waxer.

Continue Reading...

A small white cotton T-shirt. I'd bought it four days earlier at Fashion for Eva on Sunset Boulevard, slept in it for three nights in a row, and stored it in a Ziploc bag in my freezer during the day. Those were the instructions for attending the pheromone party at the Silent Movie Theatre in Hollywood -- part singles soirée, part science experiment, part hipster cornucopia.

Here's how it works: Participants imprint their odor on cotton T-shirts and then bring them to the party. Upon registering and shelling out $30, they place their shirts in plastic bags with numbered Post-its – pink for women, blue for men. The bags are placed on a table in the party area in the courtyard out back, where guests can leisurely (or voraciously, as was sometimes the case) sniff shirts in between trips to the bar for an absinthe cocktail. When you find a shirt you like, you stand in line to get your picture taken with the prized numbered shirt. The photographs are projected on a slideshow throughout the night at the bar and on the big screen inside the movie theater.

Continue Reading...