I've spent some quality time with shows like Heat Seekers and Hot Ones. In this culinary context, I know my friend would have some viral TikToks consuming various fire-breathing, capsaicin-producing… Read the rest of the article: The capsaicin chile fire challenge is maybe a bad idea

For the last quarter of a century, plus another year, the Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP), out of the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, has organized an Annual Exhibition of Artists… Read the rest of the article: The Prison Creative Arts Project showcases paintings, sculptures and drawings by the incarcerated

Look up truffle pig on the interweb, and you will not yet immediately the novel, Tears of the Trufflepig, by Fernando A. Flores. Let's change that. When possible, I read… Read the rest of the article: Tears of the Trufflepig is a head-shakingly brilliant novel about contraband animals, Mexico and a labyrinthine conspiracy

WEHO Times and Rolling Stone recently announced that Grace Jones would headline the Saturday lineup for the OUTLOUD WeHo (West Hollywood) Pride Music festival on June 2 and 4, 2023.… Read the rest of the article: Grace Jones to headline OUTLOUD Pride Music festival

As dates reflect and refract memories even before and after the arrival of an anniversary, or the knowledge of the memory, I want to remind us about the history of… Read the rest of the article: Dhoruba Bin Wahad was jailed for 19 years in the FBI's illegal COINTELPRO project

A wonderful friend began sending me Bob Eckstein's watercolor postcards of famous, still existing, and no longer existing, brick-and-mortar bookstores from across the globe when I was laid up for… Read the rest of the article: Bob Eckstein's watercolor postcards

The "protestant work ethic" is invoked for any number of political reasons – foreign policy and developmental aid, the spiritual justification for reducing one's life to capitalist time, and as… Read the rest of the article: Why capitalism and consumerism play so well with Christianity in America

An ollie on a skateboard is the most important trick to learn. It is a gateway trick. So many other tricks are possible once you know how to ollie—tapping the… Read the rest of the article: Skateboarder Mike O'Brien performs an ollie while lifting 315 pounds

In 2015, before Hilary Clinton was running for president against Donald Trump, what would have happened in the Democratic party had gotten behind Bernie Sanders? Wait, that is a different… Read the rest of the article: Superpredator panics, Three Strikes Laws, and other failed reforms

Attention anti-woke factions of the world. I want to share some essential financial news that could save your life: be on the lookout for woke banks. That's right, even the… Read the rest of the article: Beware the woke banks!

Released by the Free Press and available on Apple Podcasts is The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling, "an audio documentary that examines some of the most contentious conflicts of our… Read the rest of the article: "The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling" podcast is out now

"That gift that kept givin' us light and keeps givin' adviceTook on a life of its own and keeps livin'" Invoking place and geography, the intimacy of inherited sounds, the… Read the rest of the article: Black Thought's "Dear Hip Hop," an ode to global Hip Hop

Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom, nominated for a 2016 Academy Award for Best Documentary film, tells the story of The Revolution of Dignity, or Maidan Revolution or the… Read the rest of the article: Life to the Limit, a new film by Academy Award Nominees Pavlo Peloshok and Yurko Ivanyshyn

Joining other major fast food factories, McDonald's has announced a new menu item to be experimented with in Germany, McPlant Nuggets. Catering to appetites that are not only interested in… Read the rest of the article: McPlant Nuggets to be tested in German Markets

A group of creative and inspiring artistic intellectuals, scholarly artists, literary activists, and revolutionary thinkers – the categories are not mutually exclusive, have come together to present Hammer & Hope:… Read the rest of the article: A new Black politics and culture magazine

"When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression." Though the authorship of this quote is still contested, examples continue to abound, whether liberals refusing to mask for co-workers who… Read the rest of the article: The Southern Strategy of Christian privilege

This is a true story told to me by my neighbor's mother, Mary Alice, who grew up in South Texas after the Second World War. It was told to Mary… Read the rest of the article: When you could buy a monkey from the Sears mail-order catalog

During the 1980s and 1990s, when politicians of all stripes and political sects were trying to out "tough on crime" each other, thousands of new felony and misdemeanor laws were… Read the rest of the article: Low Rider Culture and "No Cruise Zones" in California.

Campy, over-easy, and exaggerated acting is difficult to do – well. Bad actors are as common as foot blisters on the screen and in life. At the same time, good… Read the rest of the article: Remembering Garth Marenghi's Darkplace

Matt S. Lyon impersonates millennial yuppies by creating video content of caricatures of hipster characters that move to a famous place for the first time and exude all the stereotypes… Read the rest of the article: Caricatures of people who move to famous places, by Matt S. Lyon