The Top Ten Political ‘Twilight Zone’ Episodes
Published: PolicyMic (July 3, 2012) The Stephanie Meyers of the world may come and go, but as fans of classic television will happily remind you, only one franchise will ever be truly deserving of the word "Twilight." I refer, of course, to "The Twilight Zone," that timeless anthology of the supernatural that premiered in 1959 and remained on the air for five seasons (156 episodes) before CBS...
Barack Obama’s Legacy: Part Two – After the Supreme Court’s Health Care Reform Ruling
Published: PolicyMic (June 28, 2012) Two months ago, in my editorial detailing the positive legacy President Obama will leave behind at the end of his first term, I deliberately avoided mentioning his health care reform bill, given that it was at that time "on the Supreme Court chopping block." Now that it has been officially deemed constitutional, I think it is important to note the two-fold...
Movie Review for ‘Auschwitz’
Published: PolicyMic (June 28, 2012) As the closing credits started rolling on the new German documentary Auschwitz, I found myself thinking - of all things - of a line from the 2007 Pixar feature Ratatouille, one of my favorite movies: "In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We...
Feminist Musings of a Fat Man
Published: PolicyMic (June 17, 2012) I like to eat, and I don't like to move. That is why, roughly one year ago, I was sixty pounds heavier than I am today. For this, I have no one and nothing to blame but myself. In a nation plagued by a worsening obesity epidemic, excuses have become as common as credit card debt, which is why I make a conscious effort to avoid joining the chorus of people...
The Failures of Romneynomics
Published: PolicyMic (June 11, 2012) The American people have made it clear that unemployment will be the dominant issue of this election. Polls consistently show voters prioritizing it far above every other policy question, with nothing else – not health care reform, not balancing the budget, not international relations, not gay rights – managing to place even a close second by comparison....
Why Mitt Romney is a Coward
Published: PolicyMic (June 6, 2012) Back in 1964, a Republican Governor named George Romney performed an act of rare political courage. As party delegates convened in San Francisco to coronate Senator Barry Goldwater as their presidential nominee, Romney noted Goldwater's opposition to civil rights legislation and announced that because "his [Goldwater's] views deviate as indicated from the...
Confessions of a Freedom-Hating, Tax-Loving, Marriage-Destroying Liberal
The following editorial was first published on PolicyMic (May 10, 2012) and can be found here: http://www.policymic.com/articles/8039/this-is-my-confession-i-m-a-liberal-who-hates-freedom-loves-taxes-and-has-declared-a-war-on-marriage-satire My fellow American liberals, I would like to make a modest proposal. For far too long, we have been accused of terrible things. In the last decade alone,...
‘To one subject only’
Matthew Rozsa's Masters Thesis from Rutgers Date Created2012 Other Date2012-01 (degree) Subject: History, Presidents—United States—Messages, Cleveland, Grover, 1837-190 Description: Grover Cleveland‘s third State of the Union took the unique step of only discussing one subject, tariff reform. This was in marked contrast to its predecessors, which had always covered a multitude of issues. This...
Movie Review for ‘The Avengers’
Published PolicyMic (May 18, 2012) Film critics haven't been mincing words about The Avengers. From Hollywood Life and The Washington Times to the Dekalb County Times-Journal, pundits of the silver screen are not only praising Joss Whedon's take on the band of Marvel icons, but referring to his motion picture as the greatest superhero film ever made. While I don't quite agree with this...
Satire: Confessions of a Freedom-Hating, Tax-Loving, Marriage-Destroying Liberal
Published: PolicyMic (May 10, 2012) My fellow American liberals, I would like to make a modest proposal. For far too long, we have been accused of terrible things. In the last decade alone, our opponents have said that we're un-American, that we're Communists, that we're a "tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing,...
How To Tell If You’re An Ideologue
Published: PolicyMic (May 5, 2012) No one wants to be an ideologue. Defined by Merriam-Webster's Dictionary as "an often blindly partisan advocate or adherent of a particular ideology," ideologues are correctly viewed as one of the banes of the political world. While at their most extreme, they provoke violence and oppress non-believers, even the more innocuous ones manage to hinder debate and...
Soliloquy of an Insomniac Writer”
Published: PolicyMic (May 3, 2012) Like most of the writers I know, I don't sleep well. This is probably because when you're a writer, your mind never entirely shuts off. When it isn't busy whirring away on your next literary project(s), it is almost certainly seeking material that can inspire it to produce something new. Even when you don't think your mental roamings are going to build up to...
Barack Obama’s Legacy: Part One – Comparison to John Kennedy
Published: The Morning Call (April 30, 2012), PolicyMic (April 30, 2012), CNN (April 30, 2012) With one of Barack Obama's signature legislative achievements on the Supreme Court chopping block and his re-election bid against Mitt Romney shaping up into a close race, many conservative pundits are claiming the president's legacy is in peril. Since their assertions have received ample play in the...
Ron Paul Supporters and Neo-Nazis in the Military
Published: PolicyMic (April 3, 2012) Nathan Wooten has a portrait of Adolf Hitler hanging in his living room. He named his son after a leader of the German S.S. He regularly posts comments on National Socialist message boards and created a personal profile on a white supremacist social networking site. Beyond any shadow of a doubt, Wooten is a neo-Nazi. Until last month, he was also a sergeant...
Arlen Specter’s Horrendous Stand Up Comedy
Published: PolicyMic (April 1, 2012) When I first heard that Arlen Specter was going to hit the stand-up comedy circuit, I was pretty excited. If nothing else, such a decision from an ex-Senator shows cojones, a commodity that is in distressingly short supply among most of those associated with public life. Beyond that, Specter is in a valuable position to offer sharp commentary about how our...
On Somali Terrorism
Published: PolicyMic (March 27, 2012) Of all my experiences as a graduate student, none can match the time I spent as a teaching assistant for Said Samatar. A professor of African History at Rutgers University-Newark, Samatar is the kind of scholar every up-and-coming aspires, or at least should aspire, to emulate: Intelligent, accessible, puckishly funny (he liked to prepare students for tests...
The Republican War on Women
Published: PolicyMic (March 22, 2012) Is it fair to claim that the Republican Party is waging a "war on women?" Let's look at the facts. Although the phrase in question only regained its political fashionability within the last few months, the sad truth is that the Republican Party's hostility to women's rights traces back much longer than that. The days when Senator Margaret Chase Smith...