Good article-

But "Sea Lion Woman" is the most unintent. hilarious typo I've ever seen..

I could be wrong- maybe that was the original title- but Nina Simone's "See-Line Woman" is SO much better on its own, -the "Verve Remixed" is intensely annoying.

Could there possibly have been a title like "Sea-Lion Woman"? LOL.

It must be a great ego trip for a DJ to "collaborate" with a deceased legend, without their consent. Nina Simone would haughtily decline.

Moby's thievery and lack of interest in the actual lives of the singers whose soul he stole from is revealing- to him they're just po' soulful black folk that he exploited to the fullest extent.

Moby's wan, wishy-washy , untuneful, unsoulful follow-ups prove what a fluke Play was.

He was so wildly overpraised for that CD that no one noticed that his non-relying-on-dead-black -singers tanked as singles despite Gwen Stefani valiantly trying to pump them to life.

I adore Heather Havrilesky's articles but:

I cannot stand That 70's Show. I find it excrucatingly unfunny, with the laugh track blasted up to Eleven for the most asinine bits that vaudevillians would be ashamed to exploit.

The show hasn't the slightest feel for the real 1970's- it's all a fashion joke, just really dumbed down so far that it's comprehensible to small dogs. I really do hate it.

I tried once to watch it stoned -like, maybe that's what I'm missing? and that incessant inhuman laugh-track grated on my nerves. A character could say "Oops", and the laugh-track would blow out the audio with the sounds of people in paroxysms of mirth, dying, falling out of their seats peeing themselves..

Please. The show was never that funny.

I'd like to thank Joe Conason generally for his excellent articles here at Salon and at The New York Observer..

But this article about the Box-turtle Domanech feels like Christmas Eve.

That the person who called Coretta Scott King, that gallant lady, a "Communist" on the day of her funeral should be taken down by such an excellent pundit as Conason is wonderful.

Home-schooling : perfect for turning your kids into hateful, idiotic puppets without social skills or, apparently, ethics of any kind.

Thank you Joe.

Thanks to the author of the biography of Sheldon's fascinating life and persona, and thanks to Laura Miller for writing this article. I look forward to reading the bio, as well as the Tiptree stories, about which i knew nothing until today.

Not to distract from a serious issue, but Naomi bemoaned that she had begged and pleaded to get on the cover of British Vogue, only to be snubbed for years.

In fact, Naomi has been on the cover of British Vogue SEVEN times, five times solo.

What's she smoking?

:)

I've a lot in common with you,and your theme: Catholic parents from Ireland, Dad a NYC cop and Christian Brothers alumni, my mom a nurse at Jacobi hospital. Born in the Bronx (mostly Italian neighborhood), attended Catholic school, altar boy captain, til we moved out to the East End of Long Island. Spent a marvelous 5 years in CA, San Francisco actually.

(As to the poster who asked how Joan got so far as CA- uh, airplanes? Lol.)

I'm responding because I agree with you on how certain media writers love to condescendingly squash "ethnic" Catholics into neat little boxes, while invoking florid melodramas, and stereotypes, of pop fiction. Saints and sinners! Temptation, redemption!

Huge funny: I mis-read your sub-headline: You said, "Where's Bill Donohue", and I real it as Where's "PHIL Donahue".

Phil is another altar-boy Catholic, deeply humane, anti-war, ethnic Catholic. If Rudy's exotic ethicity explains his worldview, how could we Catholics also produce a proud progressive like Phil? I ask this because, of all the stereotypes of Irish Catholics out there, as a gay person, I've been lucky enough to have nothing but love and support from my family.

To be raised Catholic doesn't mean one is a superstitious bigot, or a pro-war militant, or a sentimental Irish tippler, or an opera-loving, hot-tempered Italian.

Just fascinating, the projections and assumptions people in the media still feel free to make about ethnicity and class. And write a story around those assumptions.

Thanks, appreciate your writing on this matter.