We saw Lonnie Lazar’s great post about user-created election posters today -- and his request for reader submissions -- and thought: What a great idea!

So we’re turning it into an official open call: If you could create your ideal campaign poster, what would it look like? Upload your own… Read full post »

Starting at 9 pm EST tonight, millions of Americans -- and I’m assuming most you -- will be watching the second round of this election’s presidential debates. If you’re anything like the folks I know, you’ll probably be congregating in big groups to shout at the screen, play i… Read full post »

It's been another week of bad news for the economy. Inflation is rising at the fastest rate in 27 years, unemployment is stuck its highest level since 2002, and, with the mortgage crisis and rising price of oil, more and more people around the country are struggling to make ends meet.… Read full post »

Growing older over the past few decades, there were several things that I’ve always been able to count on. Things will get more expensive, my socks will disappear at the Laundromat, and, every two to three years, Madonna will adopt a new and baffling new look. There was… Read full post »

As many of you have already heard, this week’s cover of the New Yorker is causing quite the uproar. The cartoon, which was meant as a satire, combines many of the smears that have been thrown at the Obamas over the past few months: Barack is wearing muslim robes/… Read full post »

It's the summer of four dollar gas, and around the country, folks seem to be rethinking the way they get around. Teenagers have cut down on their nighttime cruising, and prices are sending a new surge of people to mass transit, bicycles, and a host of other cheaper and/… Read full post »

One of the most off-putting things about living in Manhattan is the fact that you can't see where you are. If you live in the center of the city, it's possible to go several weeks without ever seeing the horizon. For some people that I know, that's part of… Read full post »

While going through all the new online movie trailers this week (Should I be ashamed, or does anybody else do this?), I came across the trailer for “Mirrors,” a new film by Alexandre Aja, starring Kiefer Sutherland and, evidently, a small child.  A few years ago, Aja made a/… Read full post »

July 4th is just around the corner, and, like many of you,  I'm looking forward to a nice long weekend, burgers on a rooftop and firework-watching with friends. (It's not the most creative way to celebrate Independence Day, but I'll stick to what I know.) As we build up… Read full post »

As most of you probably know, Michelle Obama kicked off this Wednesday with a chatty appearance on "The View."

According to some, this is part of an "image make-over" to make her seem more appealing and less threatening to American voters (some of whom have been off-put/… Read full post »

One of my earliest moments of self-awareness (and my closest encounter with a natural disaster) took place when I was sitting in a kiddie pool in Edmonton, Alberta. On that particular day, I was at the pool for a swimming lesson with my mother and my older sister. I… Read full post »

It’s been a tough few days to be a Midwesterner -- and a Midwestern levee. This week’s flooding has forced thousands of people from their homes, damaged countless houses, and severely hurt 12 percent of Midwestern crops. It's also left many Americans despondent and vulnerable. As Proco… Read full post »

  The side-window view of the high point (literally) of my daily commute. 

  Read full post »

In one of the weirdest AIDS education efforts in recent memory, MTVu and Poz magaine (a magazine for the HIV-positive community) have teamed up to create PosorNot, an internet game in which players try to -- based on looks, occupation, age and hobbies -- determine whether or not somebody… Read full post »

My most memorable moviegoing experience, and, in fact, my most important formative cultural experience, happened in high school, when I decided I really hated a war movie.

At the time – and it goes without saying here that I was a huge nerd -- I’d assumed that… Read full post »

I realize that this is far less terrifying than all of the other stories that have been published here in the last couple of days, and it probably illustrates the fact that I don’t know anything about marine life more than anything else, but the scariest thing that ever… Read full post »

With the “Sex and the City” movie opening in a few days, the media coverage has been pretty hard to escape.  Some of it has been fun, some of it boring. But by far the most hysterical SATC trend piece I’ve seen so far comes from ABC News, with/… Read full post »

Are you upwardly mobile? Do you buy ethical luggage? Are you keeping abreast of the newest trends in “eco-friendly exfoliation”? If you’ve answered yes to any of those questions, well, congratulations, you may be a “scuppie” – the latest in a long line of endeari/… Read full post »

The “Indiana Jones” premiere is almost upon us. In four days, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” will parachute into the world. The build-up has been long and awkward and annoying and many of my favorite movie blogs have been breathlessly covering Indy-rela… Read full post »

When I grew up in the suburbs, the fact that all of the surrounding neighborhoods looked exactly like mine never struck me as terribly odd. There was Riverbend, and Greenfield, and Bearspaw and Bluequill and Aspen Gardens. But now I go home, and I honestly can’t tell the difference/… Read full post »

We’ve all got our embarrassing guilty-pleasure television shows. Or at least I’ve got a bunch, and most of them are pretty emasculating. Several years ago, I discovered, shamefully, that after a long day, there’s nothing that makes my brain shut off quite like &ldqu… Read full post »

In this yesterday's New York Times movie section, Manohla Dargis published an essay about the gender parity in the summer's slate of blockbuster films. The verdict? Men are still dominating the multiplexes: "All you have to do is look at the movies themselves — at the decorative blondes/… Read full post »

Most of the news about the economy hasn't exactly been optimistic lately. Consumer spending continues to stagnate, oil and food prices have soared, and the Fed continues to cut interest rates. Even President Bush, after several months of denying the bad news, has finally admitted that things a… Read full post »

In last week's issue of the Economist, I came across this awfully weird ad from Dubai. It advertises an exciting new sponsorship opportunity: In exchange for a hefty sum of money, Dubai will allow sponsors to name the Dubai Metro station of their choice or one of the Metro/… Read full post »

Those 9/11 conspiracy theorists may be annoying, but they're darn good at getting people's attention. At this point I've seen them all over the place --- on TV, heckling Bill Maher or Stephen Colbert, or picketing really random events. The first time I visited the World Trade Center site,… Read full post »