How Obama is using pop culture to transform the Oval Office
Published: The Daily Dot (January 3, 2016) In the most recent episode of his hit webseries Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Jerry Seinfeld featured a guest who is not a professional comedian: President Barack Obama. At one point in the show, Seinfeld asked the president what was his most embarrassing moment in office so far. “This may be it,” Obama joked. The thing is, though, that some other...
The Comedy in White Supremacy
Published: The Good Men Project (January 2, 2016) It's one thing to explain why modern white supremacists are funny (something I've already done several times), but it's quite another to actually illustrate how this can be the case. Fortunately, a good friend of mine recently received an anonymous message from an Internet stalker which allows me to do precisely that. This troll, you see, was...
Living with an Invisible Disability
Published: The Good Men Project (December 31, 2015) This is an article about invisible disabilities... metaphorical as well as literal. As many of my readers already know, I was born with a hand-eye coordination disability that mystifies my neurologists to this day. Thanks to my parents' diligence and the help of wonderful childhood physical therapists, I have sufficiently overcome it so that...
5 reasons why 2015 was the year of the social justice warrior
Published: Salon (December 31, 2015), The Daily Dot (December 26, 2015) Although the term “social justice warrior” was constructed as an insult against progressive activists, the year 2015 has amply demonstrated why liberals should embrace the term. Social justice issues dominated the year, from race to sexual identity and beyond. Here are five ways the United States grappled with with social...
Anyone else worried about snowless December?
Published: The Good Men Project (December 26, 2015) I've lived in Pennsylvania for 18 years and, despite the state's frosty winter reputation, this is the first time I've ever witnessed a snowless December. My personal observations aside, this has been a big month for global warming. On December 12, nearly two hundred countries signed an agreement in Paris that will help bring global warming...
Why do Jews eat Chinese food on Christmas?
Published: The Good Men Project (December 24, 2015) Much to my horror, I discovered earlier today that my favorite local Chinese restaurant isn't open on Christmas Eve. This may not seem like a big deal - heck, you could even say that I'm a bit of a scrooge for faulting the establishment - but it's important to remember that, as an American Jew, being denied Chinese food on this holiday is a bit...
Donald Trump is an epic con man… and is the joke on us?
Published: Salon (December 24, 2015), The Good Men Project (December 22, 2015) A brief but telling statement about Donald Trump's early years, courtesy of a former high school classmate: "He didn’t mingle with the rest of the corps who were not as high ranked. He lived in a different set of barracks." I'm drawing attention to this quote because it highlights my main observation about Trump's...
How America’s fears are letting the terrorists win
Published: The Daily Dot (December 22, 2015) Forget about the terrorists. At his rate it seems like we’re determined through our own fear to allow the terrorists to win. Allow me to explain. Let’s start with the rash of school closings that have occurred over terrorist threats. The first (and without question most patently absurd) was the “clock boy” incident from earlier this year, when a...
Democratic candidates blast Trump’s Muslim ban at debate
Published: MSNBC (December 20, 2015) Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley were unified on one topic during the last Democratic presidential debate of the year Saturday night: The toxicity of Donald Trump’s proposed temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States. Each candidate seized on the opportunity to decry racial and religious bigotry — and encouraged the rest of America...
Sorry Hillary Clinton, you still look like a cheater!
Published: The Good Men Project (December 19, 2015) I suppose I should be happy that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) has reversed its decision to block the Bernie Sanders campaign from its own voter data. For one thing, the punishment was grossly out of proportion to the crime - without proof that Sanders himself knew about the leaks from Hillary Clinton's campaign, denying him access to...
Saturday night’s not all right for debating
Published: The Daily Dot (December 18, 2015) If you watched the second Democratic presidential debate five weeks ago, consider yourself an anomaly. That event was the lowest rated of the debates held so far during the 2016 election cycle, drawing in only 8.55 million viewers. Compared to the monster ratings drawn by Donald Trump and the GOP–the Las Vegas debate on Tuesday drew 18 million...
From the Minds of Babes: We Must Take Depression Seriously
Published: The Good Men Project (December 17, 2015) Do you want to read an observation about depression that is, well, depressing? I turn to a recent comment by Dr. Joan Luby, the director of the Early Emotional Development Program at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis: “Nobody believed preschoolers could get depressed. People generally assumed children under the age of...
Once again, Trump sets the agenda for the GOP debate
Published: The Daily Dot (December 16, 2015) If the Republican debate in Las Vegas on Tuesday night is any indication, Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has completely changed the shape of this race. When he declared (in the same breath that he pledged to support the Republican nominee if it isn’t himself) that he “will do everything in my power to beat (Democratic hopeful) Hillary Clinton, I...
Why We Should Laugh at Trump’s Nazis
Published: The Good Men Project (December 15, 2015) During a Donald Trump rally in Las Vegas earlier today, a Trump supporter shouted "Sieg heil!" as a black protester was physically ejected from a room where the candidate was speaking. Unsurprisingly, this incident has taken social media by storm, if for no other reason than it reinforces the widespread belief that Trump is a latter-day Nazi....
The GOP debate is all about winning the news cycle, not the voters
Published: The Daily Dot (December 14, 2015) As the candidates prepare for the eighth Republican presidential debate in Las Vegas on Tuesday night, there are a few things we know for sure. As usual, there will be two debates - an undercard debate at 6 p.m. featuring candidates who currently aren’t polling well (former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, former...
Adam Sandler may never be funny again: Another unending parade of half-baked, offensive stereotypes disguised as comedy
Published: Salon (December 13, 2015) As I watched “The Ridiculous Six,” my mind kept returning to an old episode from the popular Web series “Half in the Bag.” While reviewing the comedy “Jack and Jill,” critic Jay Bauman came up with a list of stale tropes that predictably appear in all of Adam Sandler’s movies. Nestled between entries like “general whorish product placement” and “scenes of...
Why Ted Cruz Is Worse Than Donald Trump
Published: Salon (December 15, 2015), The Good Men Project (December 12, 2015) If you can't stand the thought of Donald Trump becoming president, the good news is that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) looks poised to upset him in the pivotal Iowa caucuses next month. The bad news is that if Cruz succeeds and ultimately becomes the Republican nominee, he will prove to be far worse than Trump himself. For one...