Why the Bill Clinton Rape Allegations Still Matter
Published: Daily Dot (November 24, 2014) As the number of rape allegations against Bill Cosby continues to rise, many conservative pundits are criticizing progressives for ignoring the sketchy sexual history of one of the Democratic Party’s greatest living icons: former President Bill Clinton. “When it comes to these kinds of allegations some powerful men like Bill Cosby are taunted and hunted,...
3 Reasons I’m Not #ReadyForHillary Just Yet
Published: Daily Dot (November 20, 2014) As a progressive millennial who actively volunteered for and supported Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, I am ready to make public an opinion I’ve only expressed in private until now: In retrospect, I wish we’d nominated Hillary Clinton. This statement isn’t intended as a slight against Obama (who I actually ranked pretty highly...
Why no one noticed when a male TV host where the same suit every day for a year
Published: Daily Dot (November 19, 2014) If you’ve been following the news over the past few days, you’ve probably heard about recent social experiment from Karl Stefanovic. After witnessing the constant nitpicking and harassment experienced by his female co-host, Lisa Wilkinson, the Australian TV personality decided to test how both the network and ordinary viewers would react if he wore the...
3 Things I Want You To Know Asperger’s Syndrome
Published: Good Men Project (November 19, 2014) Matthew Rozsa shares his experience and perspective to help ‘neurotypicals’ understand high-functioning autism. ___ More than a decade ago, when I was still a teenager and almost no one I knew had even heard of it, I was officially diagnosed with high-functioning autism. Over the years, as awareness has spread, I’ve periodically taken stabs at...
How Ayn Rand became an Internet superstar
Published: Daily Dot (November 17, 2014), Salon (November 18, 2014), MediaREDEF (November 18, 2014) Ayn Rand is not a feminist icon, but it speaks volumes about the Internet that some are implicitly characterizing her that way, so much so that she’s even become a ubiquitous force on the meme circuit. Last week, Maureen O’Connor of The Cut wrote a piece about a popular shirt called the...
5 Reasons Obama Is A Better President Than You Think
Published: Daily Dot (November 12, 2014) Supporters of President Obama can rest easy: His legacy as one of America’s greatest presidents remains intact, even if the tide of public and Internet sentiments has turned. (His approval rating stands at a paltry 39 percent.) As the president works to fight for net neutrality, it's time to celebrate his biggest accomplishments. Despite the worst midterm...
Why Sexist Attacks on Hillary Clinton Won’t Fly On The Internet
Published: Daily Dot (November 12, 2014) Six years ago, sexism in the media was instrumental in denying Hillary Clinton the Democratic presidential nomination. Thanks to the growth of online feminism, however, the media may be her salvation in 2016. In an interview with Politico on Monday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) took a nervy swipe at Hillary Clinton’s age by commenting that a presidential...
3 Reasons Why Wearing Blackface Is (Almost) Never Okay
Published: Daily Dot (November 11, 2014) Why can’t we get over blackface? Take the backlash against Nisha Damji, the British woman who complained about a pub owner’s use of blackface. After expressing her feelings in an online forum, Damji was greeted with online comments that ranged from lame excuses (it was an “absurdist” joke and the man’s black friend dressed up as a “black klansman”) to the...
5 Things Our Education System Needs To Start Teaching… For The Sake of America
Published: Good Men Project (November 6, 2014) Matthew Rozsa wonders if the American education system is producing good citizens. As Americans wind down from the 2014 midterm elections (and, inevitably, begin preparing for the presidential contest two years hence), this question deserves special attention. In any society even ostensibly structured according to democratic principles, the...
Why Ben Stein Is A Disgrace To Nerds Everywhere
Published: Daily Dot (November 6, 2014) Ben Stein’s credibility as a nerd is dead, as Stein’s recent controversial (and patently untrue) claim that President Obama is the “most racist president there has ever been in America” is evidence that he’s departed the critical thinking train. Since nerds seem to rule the world, it’s time for them to come for one of their own....
Why Daylight Saving Time is a waste of everyone’s energy
Published: Daily Dot (November 4, 2014), Salon (November 5, 2014), Interview with CBC - Calgary (March 10, 2015), Interview with CBC - Edmonton (March 16, 2015) The ritual's energy savings are negligible, and the long winter nights are making us all miserable. Enough already When you get right down to it, Daylight Saving Time is a national holiday. This is not intended as a compliment. After...
Only a culture of shame can finally put a stop to Gamergate
Published: Daily Dot (November 3, 2014) Roman philosopher Seneca suggested that “shame may restrain what law does not prohibit,” and the message might as well have been directed at anyone who writes, reads, and/or comments on Internet articles. It’s time that we apply this maxim to those who attack female writers online. The doxing of Felicia Day highlighted the plight of women participating in...
What You Can Learn from a Model
Published: Good Men Project (November 1, 2014) co-author: Liskula Cohen Liskula Cohen shares wisdom from a place you might not expect…the world of high-fashion modeling. If there is one thing I’ve learned from being a model, it’s that a lot of the lessons which apply to working in this industry are pretty universal. It’s easy to think of models as living a rarefied existence, inaccessible and...
Why the Internet needs Monica Lewinsky
Published: Daily Dot (October 23, 2014), Huffington Post (October 24, 2014) It’s hard to imagine anyone wanting to trade places with Monica Lewinsky. Not only is she destined to be remembered in textbooks as the “other woman” in one of America’s most infamous sex scandals (culminating in the first presidential impeachment since Reconstruction), but she continues to be a cheap and popular...
Gamergate and the Basement Generation
Published: Good Men Project (October 23, 2014), Daily Dot (October 27, 2014) Matt Rozsa doesn’t see the passion of the basement generation as necessarily a bad thing, but it needs to be used for good. “Man, I see in Fight Club the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see it squandered. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables – slaves...
How being best friends with Siri saved an autistic boy’s life
Published: Daily Dot (October 23, 2014) Earlier this week, the New York Times ran an editorial by Judith Newman about her autistic child and the bond he has developed with Siri, the iPhone app. After discovering there was “someone who would not just find information on his various obsessions...but actually semi-discuss these subjects tirelessly,” Newman has found that her son Gus now has a...
5 ways to make sure you’re not that customer the Internet hates
Published: Daily Dot (October 21, 2014) If there’s one topic food service employees love to discuss, it’s the pros and cons of working in their industry. People seem to hold a different standard for how they treat waiters, fast food clerks, and the wide range of other men and women who serve their meals. This was most recently evidenced by the viral story of a high school football player who...