Trayvon Martin's tragic murder has brought much-needed scrutiny to "stand your ground" laws, aggressive self-defense laws that are on the books in some 25 states. As we've seen over the past weeks, these broadly defined laws not only pose a threat to public safety,  in practice they al… Read full post »

On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 (along party lines with Justice Anthony Kennedy hitched to the conservative bandwagon) that the police can strip-search any person arrested for any crime -- no matter how petty the offense and without the burden of probable cause -- before admitting hi… Read full post »

Two years after the president signed it into law, Obamacare is beginning to have a big impact: Millions more young adults are insured; prescription costs for the elderly are on the decline; and children with preexisting conditions can no longer be denied coverage. Yet, as Andrew Leonard detailed in S… Read full post »

Over the weekend, Salon's Will Doig wrote a piece about why we city-dwellers place so much value on our views, especially ones of parks and waterways. The article included a slideshow featuring view snapshots taking by Will and several of his friends. Now, we want to see what the… Read full post »

While we'll be checking in from time to time, the office will be closed from December 23rd until January 3rd. In the interim, we'll be featuring the great responses to our holiday open calls on the cover. 

Happy holidays and best wishes for the New Year! I look forward to reading more… Read full post »

From the Arab Spring to the Occupy movement, 2011 was a year of political surprises. It was also marked by hardship: a floundering global economy, a horrofic domestic terrorist attack in Norway, and countless devastating natural disasters, including a magnitude 9 earthquake that set off the worst nuc… Read full post »

Soon January will be upon us -- and once more my gym will be swarmed by swaths of New Yorkers who've swore that this will be the year they shed X number of pounds. Their ranks will thin by mid-month, and occupancy will dwindle to normal sometime around March. We all… Read full post »

This morning, Alex Pareene kicked off our second annual Salon Hack List. We'll announce our Number One hack tomorrow afternoon -- but we want your nominations of people we've missed.

Did your favorite mock-worthy political hack not make the cut? Blog your nominees, explain why they belong on the… Read full post »

It's nice to focus on the sweeter and lighter aspects of the season, but the holidays have a darker side as well: They're stressful, they're expensive and they can be incredibly lonely. Over on big Salon tonight, we're running a short story from the collection "Blue Chri… Read full post »

On Thursday, December 15 at 7:30 PM, Salon is hosting an event called "American Spring: Exploring Untold History with Oliver Stone" in Santa Monica, Calif. for Salon Core members, and we've decided to open it up to Open Salon bloggers as well. The evening will feature a conversation be… Read full post »

Santa, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny -- I, for one, spent most of my childhood off in some fantasy realm, convinced that magic was real and that my owl from Hogwarts would be coming any day now. But no matter how much we cherish these staples of our youth, sooner… Read full post »

I know the spam has been out of control for a while now, and we really do feel your pain. It's incredibly frustrating  for all of us to sign on each morning and find the most recent feed full of advertisements for "live streaming" sports game and moncler jackets.

It's distressing… Read full post »

This morning, we ran a piece by Laura Miller celebrating the wonders of independent bookstores. Squeezed first by big box stores like Barnes and Noble and later by online retailers like Amazon, these beloved neighborhood staples are a dying breed. We'd like to draw more attention to these f… Read full post »

The holiday season -- which here in New York at least officially begins the day after Halloween -- is stressful and hectic, especially during hard economic times like these. And we often grumble about all that is wrong with it: the family arguments, the horrific travel experiences, the endless superm… Read full post »

The recession has left many Americans jobless and unable to find work in their chosen industry. My Brilliant Second Career is a personal essay series we're launching on Salon about what people do next -- and we hope you'll pitch your own ideas. We want to read your stories about how… Read full post »

We've already seen a bunch of fantastic posts documenting various Occupy Wall Street protests across the country. (You can check out a slideshow featuring photos from Open Saloners Harry Homeless, Linda Seccaspina and Lew Lorton here.)

Basically,… Read full post »

My colleague Alex Pareene just published a piece about Erick Erickson's unintentionally hilarious (and also pretty depressing) website, We Are The 53%. He included the parody photo below along with the post. The website screams for satire -- so why not take your own parody pictures and… Read full post »

We've rolled out some great changes at big Salon over the weekend; basically, we've re-engineered the site to make it faster and more efficient by switching to a new platform.

Here's a quick rundown of the major changes here and on big Salon:

-New membership program called CORE that offers subsc… Read full post »

Over at big Salon, we're kicking off a new series called "Interview with my Bully."  (The first entry from Steve Almond ran last night).  As part of an effort to broaden the conversation about the bullying epidemic in our schools, we'll be running a number of these Q&As between people a… Read full post »

Over on big Salon last night, we're ran a great piece by my colleague (and, as some of you may recall, erstwhile Open Salon Editor) Thomas Rogers about how an uncomfortable, homophobic college hazing ritual changed his life -- and the way he viewed himself. The article is… Read full post »

 At some point or another, we all learn that our parents did not in fact burst forth from their mothers' wombs as the fully formed people who raised us, but actually have their own strange and complicated pasts. We want to read your stories about discovering fascinating and surprising things abo… Read full post »

In my efforts to flee Hurricane Irene, I will be off Open Salon and out of the country next week (I'll be back Tuesday, September 6th). My wonderful colleague Emma Mustich will be filling for me.  I showed her the ropes this week, and I'm sure she'll do an great job… Read full post »

Over at big Salon last night, we ran a great essay by my colleague Sarah Hepola about, after returning home to Texas a year after she quit booze, figuring out how to hang out with her old drinking buddies... without going to the bar. The piece addresses one of the most… Read full post »

This Monday marks the 235th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. From family-friendly picnics to drunken barbecues, from watching Macy's fireworks to setting off illegal ones in Brooklyn, there are many ways to celebrate our nation's decision to cut ties with the Brits.

Thi… Read full post »