2011

The big news in the pop music world was how yet another of Katy Perry’s mediocre-yet-catchy songs from her ‘Teenage Dream’ 2010 record has bought its way to the top of the pop charts. For some this is a sign that Perry is some ‘queen of pop’, in the same way they bought the way for Lady Gaga to sell a million records in her first week to demonstrate … something. Some are excited about it: Dream’s singles success could prompt a reassessment of Perry’s musical chops, says Joe Levy, chief content officer at Maxim. “This just proves she’s a…

Last night I was watching former Tea Party-backed Republican candidate Christine O’Donnell walk out on the Piers Morgan CNN interview show, and later was reading a series of discussions on an internet game forum in which the two same individuals take opposing views to one another in each thread – and opposing views to themselves from thread to thread, uniting only to trash someone else in a third thread … which required them to compromise their own views from before. The cantankerous political discourse of the last two decades, characterized here as ‘The Politics of No’ can be easily summed…