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Non-Racist Whites Simply Don't Like Obama's Race

John McWhorterBill Buckley-esque NY Sun columnist and bizarre racial thinker—has taken his bizarre racial thinking act over to the New York Times for a day, presumably because conservative black academic columnists are hard to come by in New York City on a holiday weekend. In a video debate on the Times' website, McWhorter advances the novel theory that Barack Obama doesn't have to worry about racism; just his race. Here's an example of a statement that he says is not racist: "I won't vote for a black person because he's a radical type and would bring in Farrakhan." And hey, how come black people can hang around each other and it's okay, but white people can't? It's because "white people aren't allowed to be diverse." Okay! The other guy is, frankly, no match for McWhorter's secret redefinitions of words that negate their own meaning. The baffling debate, after the jump. More »

journalismism

Washington Post Reports: Powerful People Are Powerful

David Rothkopf, a highly educated scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, penned an explosive op-ed for the Washington Post that could upend the global power structure and spark revolution across the earth. Because it seems that our world—far from being one in which each of the 6 billion humans shares in an equal portion of the political, economic, and cultural power, as you had believed—is actually run by a "superclass" of people who control everything. Rothkopf reports, in direct contradiction to everything that your third grade social studies teacher promised you, that very powerful people are, in fact, very powerful. Bummer! More »

shouting heads

Bill Maher Bowing To Pope Nazis?

Not being well tuned in to the Catholic outrage circuit, we missed the big controversy this week over Bill Maher calling the Pope the head of a "child-abusing religious cult," and saying "he used to be a Nazi and he wears funny hats." That sounds fairly accurate, no? Not to Catholic League president and perpetually outraged man Bill Donohue, who demanded an apology on behalf of all Catholics worldwide who care about trivial things. And now Donohue says that he's been assured that Maher plans to apologize tonight for "falsely accusing the pope of once being a Nazi." Because in fact the Pope was just "conscripted into a German Youth organization (from which he fled as soon as he could)." Is Bill Maher now expected to be nuanced when it comes to the objects of his hate? Doesn't really sound like him. If you're reading this, Mr. Maher, and I know you are: just shout "Jesus loved whores!" at the end of your apology, to maintain your cred. The clip of his original Pope rant, after the jump. More »

moby

Tea-Swilling Musician Is Not Into Drugs

Moby, the purposely bald and nerdy musician frequently seen wandering the Lower East Side in search of commercials to score, is warning his brethren in the music industry about the dangers of drugs. "I look at Pete Doherty and Amy Winehouse, I wonder what they're going to be capable of when they're 30, in terms of cognitive and emotional abilities. Drugs burn you out," says the diminutive drum programmer, who knows too much about teabags. "You feel bulletproof if you're selling records and making money and everyone wants to sleep with you, but then things start to go wrong." In other news, somebody once wanted to sleep with Moby. [ohnotheydidnt]

past in present

Summer Is Over, Stop Listening To Feist

I was in the DUMBO West Elm watching stroller-pushing condo-dwellers tap their toes to the beat of "Sealion Woman" while admiring antler lamps when it finally dawned on me: Feist's "The Reminder" is totally the "Speakerboxx/The Love Below" of Summer 2007. Leslie Feist's Canadian smart-rock was fun for a minute and then so ubiquitous you felt like killing someone every time you heard it. Sure, the first few hundred listens were great! And those wistful yearning songs about how "I will be the one to break my heart" were perfect complements to all our summer crushes. But it's fall now, even though it's still 85 degrees out, and everyone's job is back to being serious and all those summer crushes have decayed like so many overripe farmer's market tomatoes. Please. It's over. It's time to forget.