Where to begin with Ann Coulter? While her tirades are usually directed at liberals of all stripes, this time she’s taking on the University of Ottawa for making her the victim of a “hate crime”. The crime in question? A letter from the University administration warning her to exercise “restraint, respect and consideration” during a talk she had planned for the students. Thus, she filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission. One of many many self-ordained Paul Reveres in service of the conservative cause, Coulter persists in decrying the transgressions made against her predominantly wealthy, white camp as though, despite the facts, they were in any way disenfranchised.

Coulter’s targeting of the University of Ottawa administration and Canada’s Human Rights Commissions came at the end of a half-hour speech that attacked political correctness in the United States and the mainstream media, which she said was uncritical of the Obama administration and unfairly biased against conservatives.–––Vancouver Sun 3/23/10

As a television personality Coulter can be perplexing: her blonde mane and all-American appearance (some might say, ahem, Aryan) make her fiery rhetoric seem that much more severe. This is only worth mentioning because our culture places so much emphasis on appearance, of which sexism is of course a byproduct. We like our American girls to talk as pretty as they look. In contrast, by the time Glenn Beck launches into the same kinds of assaults on all manner of “unpatriotic” activities, his crocodile tears and sweaty brow have already belied the demons bubbling under his surface. So of course there is a double standard at work, which Coulter exploits to great effect––like a Trojan Horse, she cloaks her violence with an ostensibly pleasing physical appearance. The following quotes speak volumes:

“Originally, I was the only female with long blonde hair. Now, they all have long blonde hair.”–––CapitolHillBlue.com 6/6/00

“I am emboldened by my looks to say things Republican men wouldn’t.”–––TV Guide 8/97

And here we get her views on Sarah Palin’s real, if dubious, ascent to the global political stage:

Although she is of course a product of feminism––a fundamental link in the human rights struggle, incidentally––Coulter’s conservative views are a shot to the foot.  Case in point:

“I think [women] should be armed but should not [be allowed to] vote.”—Politically Incorrect, 2/26/01

If women shouldn’t be allowed to vote, then why should they be allowed to become Vice President? The double standards and hypocrisy she rails against have found a cozy nesting ground right inside her own mind.

Amazing new video from electro-dance band Hot Chip for the single “I Feel Better” off their new album One Life Stand.

Right from the beginning we get clued into Hot Chip’s sharp sense of irony: we know something isn’t quite right with the boy band on stage, whose atlas-like physiques and pretty faces are tempered by over-the-top moves and winks at the camera, plus they’re all lip-synching to a single vocal track. We just don’t know what’s about to happen. I’ll let the video speak for itself from hereon out.

Tampon brand Kotex made the mistake of using the word “vagina” in an advertisement, and naturally it was pulled by the networks before it could air. This begs the question, why are we still so afraid of our genitals? Certainly, we’re afraid to talk about them, but the underpinning here is that we are afraid of the organs themselves. Short answer: we’re prudes. The long answer of course would involve redacting the entire history of sexual repression through the ages.

A blog post by Richard Adams of the UK Guardian highlights the hypocrisy and double-standards at work:

Even when the company substituted “down there” for vagina, two of the networks still wouldn’t run the ad, so the company was forced to drop the idea altogether. That provoked Amanda Hess, author of The Sexist blog, to observe: “Now, the commercial contains no direct references to female genitalia – you know, the place where the fucking tampon goes.”

An executive for Kimberly-Clark, the owner of Kotex, notes that US TV networks have no such compunction about references to “erectile dysfunction” in prime-time ads for Viagra and Ciallis.

Here is the amended commercial that has now aired:

Indeed, it has been perfectly acceptable to openly discuss Grandpa’s limp dick on television, but vaginas are too disgusting to even mention. Must we really remind ourselves that most of us entered this world through one? The time has come for television to stop infantilizing us and address our pee pees and wee wees by their proper names.

Would you torture someone for money and a chance at having your face on TV? Many people would, it turns out. Game show contestants in France this month were instructed to electrically shock other contestants when they answered quiz questions incorrectly, and 80 percent dutifully carried out their orders, some even to the point of death. Of course nobody was harmed and the “victims” were paid actors. It was part of a psychological experiment for French television that brings much to light about how our culture is changing our humanity.

This article off the wire explains:

The game: posing questions to another “player” and punishing him with up to 460 volts of electricity when he gets them wrong — even until his cries of “Let me go!” fall silent and he appears to have died.

Not knowing that the screaming victim is really an actor, the apparently reluctant contestants yield to the orders of the presenter and chants of “Punishment!” from a studio audience who also believed the game was real.

Nick said 80 percent of the contestants went all the way, zapping the victim with the maximum 460 volts until he appeared to die. Out of 80 players, just 16 walked out.

This premise was more or less laid out by Stephen King (under the pseudonym Richard Bachman) in his sci-fi novel The Running Man (later a movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger), in which convicts are forced to vie for their freedom by fighting opponents to the death before a live studio audience.

Part of the effectiveness of this horror rests in the audience’s goading. Humans gleefully watching other humans being maimed and killed is a nightmare that has all-too-often manifested in the real world. And this French psychological test proves how quickly humans’ compassion for each other dissipates at the promise of even nominal personal gain.

But this isn’t all that au courant. Spy TV, which lasted only 2 seasons on NBC in 2001, was a Candid Camera-type show that I happened to tune into as unwitting contestants trying out for a fake show called “Cannibals”, engaged in the ultimate taboo: eating what they were told was human meat (actually pork) for money. And most of them did it!

If I had just landed on Earth and turned on the TV, I might presume this planet was populated by animalistic, compassionless creatures who will do almost anything to be delivered from the dreary anonymity of their lives . How close that is to the truth is the real horror.

Corey Haim, 80’s teen heartthrob and permanent fixture in the collective memory of anyone in their thirties, has died of an apparent overdose. At 38, he had traveled the path of self-destruction so often taken by former child stars, sinking into drug addiction and ballooning from his previously wiry frame to 300 pounds. Despite attempts at rehab, and a short-lived reality show with his former partner-in-crime Corey Feldman, Haim fell victim to the biggest Hollywood cliché of all: untimely death.

Despite the commercial nature of most of his films he managed to create an empathetic, if at times a bit cartoonish, portrait of the average American teenager. He was the kid we all wanted to be, having the adventures we wanted to have. In The Lost Boys Haim portrayed a typical kid from Santa Cruz, California, fascinated with horror stories, who had the misfortune/fortune of encountering a pack of stylish vampires helmed by Kiefer Sutherland. It remains one of my favorite movies and is widely considered a cult classic. His talents may have been more deep and subtle than critics would have given him credit for––he was often dismissed as little more than a teenybopper icon. And though his portrayal of a frail, nerdy kid in Lucas revealed an actor full of wit and pathos, his career would be relegated to the Summer teen flick. And like so many child actors, once he got older his public appeal plummeted. It’s a sad story, and we’ve seen it happen so many times before. RIP Corey Haim.