Culture

We appreciate the considerateness, but . . . > A German city is rushing to install a series of drive-in wooden "sex garages" in time for next year's Soccer World Cup and an expected boom in the local sex trade, a city official said Wednesday. > Dortmund, one

Fox Cable Networks announced the debut of Fox Reality--a network that provides 24/7 reality programming. Sound unique? No, there are already two other cable channels that provide 24/7 reality coverage, and the rest of the world has had it since 2003. Consider these programs: > Terrorism in

> A federal civil rights lawsuit filed today charges that the Poway Unified School District violated the constitutional rights of a student and censored his free speech. The school district threatened further punishment and suspended the student for expressing his religious faith on a T-shirt during a school day

Europeans, especially folks in the Netherlands, are outgrowing Americans. Here's a link to a fascinating article at The New Yorker. Excerpts: > By the end of the nineteenth century, however, the country seemed set to regain its eminence. The economy was expanding at a dramatic rate, and public-

Is all that sexually-charged advertising and programming okay? The empiricists out there won't believe that it's harmful until they see hard evidence, but the saner denizens of our populace rely on the traditional evidence: an innate sense of norms, a little imagination, metaphor. This writer

Shopping is therapy. If that doesn't signal a consumerist society, then Eric Scheske isn't spitting mad at Charter Communications for losing his Internet connection for nine hours today. Link [http://health.discovery.com/centers/womens/shopping/shoppingtherapy.html]. Excerpt: > Whatever the motivator, shopping, in contrast

Media Maven Jeff Jarvis has a compelling meditation on the smallness economy that is gaining speed. Link [http://www.buzzmachine.com/archives/2005_06_06.html#009807]. Excerpts: > [Y]ou will come to a new definition of value built on trust. Dealing with big companies today -- airlines, banks, stores

A recounting of an episode of Showtime's cable show, B***s***. Link [http://www.mediaresearch.org/BozellColumns/entertainmentcolumn/2005/col20050603.asp] . Excerpt: > While the episode titled “Holier Than Thou,” ends with a few smacks at Mahatma Gandhi and the Dalai Lama, Penn Jillette mostly savaged the world&

An economist has undertaken studies with monkeys. It appears that primates are capable of behaving like economic animals and responding to incentives. Link [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/magazine/05FREAK.html?pagewanted=1]. Excerpt that describes one of the studies: > Two monkeys faced each other in adjoining

Great piece at WSJ about Michael Jackson and the American culture he helped create. Link [http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB111776123421750067-IZjgINglaB4n5utZ3qGaqiEm4,00.html] . Two excerpts: > In 1991, Michael Jackson produced a video called "Black and White" for MTV and VH1, which ends with him