Noah Berlatsky

As a parent, you tend to assume that you have some say in forming your child's mental landscape. Then Santa comes along.

So, if there are so many ways to sing this song, and if it's meant different things at different points, why complain about Beyoncé's version?

It's not the gender that's the problem: It's the oppression.

Conservative fetishization of the past is myopic, simplistic, and mean-spirited—but progressives can be too quick to cede tradition.

"The look on Miley's face during Nicki Minaj's savage, expletive-laden rant says it all," Salon tweeted the day after the VMAs. Less than 140 characters, but still enough to link a black woman to a longstanding racial slur.

With the death of Leonard Nimoy, it's a good moment to pay tribute to (and question) his most famous character.

Country music is an overwhelmingly heterosexual endeavor. The LGBTQ community certainly listen to, and perform, country, but in terms of lyrical content and themes, country has been focused on male-female romantic love.

Art without politics actually results in a sweeping Puritanism. For art to have power, it needs to engage with power, with politics.

While Atwood's feminist dystopia remains our favorite nightmarish future, Marge Piercy's Woman On The Edge Of Time is far superior.

Critics say call-out culture is mean-spirited and bullying. Not so fast.