“Work It,” an ABC sitcom about two unemployed buddies (a car salesman and a mechanic), who dress in drag in order to land jobs as pharmaceutical sales reps, premiered on Tuesday night. According the the official ABC blurb, the main characters are victims of “the man-cession:” Lee Standish is a quick-witted and likable family man. [...]
Nearly 2 million Americans will see their unemployment benefits expire in January if Congress doesn’t act to renew them. Some 430,000 of these workers lost their jobs as recently as July. An extension of benefits is a basic necessity for a country in the midst of a crisis of long-term unemployment: Rates have not been [...]
Middle-class black Americans are among those hardest hit by the recession, in part because they were more likely to be employed in public sector jobs, the New York Times reported on Tuesday: Though the recession and continuing economic downturn have been devastating to the American middle class as a whole, the two and a half [...]
This week, it’s not just eggs that are doing the salmonella infecting, women are having DIY abortions along the U.S.-Mexico border, and in Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty would rather shell out major cash than have comprehensive sex education. Read about it in Lindsay Beyerstein’s weekly health round-up at The Media Consortium. Women on along U.S.-Mexico border [...]
Is the IV Bag half-empty or half-full? Theda Skocpol, the author of a forthcoming book on President Barack Obama’s health care reforms, argues in The Nation that progressives are underrating reform. Skocpol urges progressives to get over their disappointment over the lack of a public health insurance option and rally around the president to support [...]
Where are the Anti-Choicers at the Kagan Hearings? As Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan begins her second week of confirmation hearings, Mother Jones’ Stephanie Mencimer wonders why the anti-abortion protesters have been uncharacteristically subdued this time around. Normally, they live for these hearings. For hardcore anti-choice activists, a Supreme Court confirmation is like Christmas, Mardi [...]
This week, we take a close look at Elena Kagan’s record on abortion; meanwhile, conservatives go after her for supporting transgender rights and for not supporting the mysterious fringe legal theory of “tentherism.” Gags, God, Guns, and Gays Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings kicked off on Monday. Her nomination has been met by glum [...]
This week, a Christian school fires a teacher for pre-marital sex (10 points if you can guess the teacher’s gender), the FDA cracks down on over-the-counter DNA tests, Detroit’s HIV rates spike and Rand Paul’s eye-doctor credentials turn out to be, err, self-bestowed–read all about it in your weekly health-news round-up from Lindsay Beyerstein at [...]
Each week, the Media Consortium rounds up progressive health stories from independent media into “The Weekly Pulse”. Today: charting cervical mucus, the perils of abstinence-only curriculum, teens having less sex, anti-choice legislation and lesbian couples raising healthy kids. Rhythm method madness: Seventeen percent of sexually active teenage girls said they used the rhythm method as [...]
