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Study Says What?

by Miriam Axel-Lute May 23, 2013

Back when I used to go to journalism conferences, I remember there frequently being workshops offered on the theme of “math for journalists.” In other words, lessons on how not to screw up, or get ...

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Reel Life

by Jo Page May 15, 2013

As somebody who lives in Schenectady, though still new to Schenectady (and then again, not new at all), I’d heard a lot about The Place Beyond the Pines. My neighbor was in it; her house ...

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Fair Enough

by Paul Rapp May 2, 2013

The New York Federal Appeals Court released its decision in the Cariou vs. Prince case last week, and it’s a gooder. The case involves famed (or perhaps infamed) appropriation artist Richard Prince’s series of manipulated ...

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Haunted Grandeur

by Jo Page May 1, 2013

I don’t know where I found the 100abandonedhouses.com website, but I know that once I started looking at the images of once-elegant and capacious derelict houses in Detroit, I was deeply intrigued. Kevin Bauman’s emotive ...

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Opting Out Together

by Miriam Axel-Lute April 24, 2013

This week and last week New York state students in grades 3–8 underwent hours and hours of new standardized testing as part of the state’s implementation of the new “Common Core” learning standards. The tests marked ...

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Where’s Fido?

by Jo Page April 18, 2013

Jack is a speeding black streak across a white field of snow. Jack is big black comma curled up in his bed on the floor. Jack is a lean, wriggling greeter when you come into ...

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Bombing Your Freedom

by Paul Rapp April 17, 2013

Urgh. The events in Boston are gonna further wreck your freedom. Just watch. Last night I was listening to a special program from WBUR about the bombings, featuring listener call-ins. The first call was from ...

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If You Really Meant That Sign . . .

by Miriam Axel-Lute April 11, 2013

My feelings about marriage equality were well summed up by Feminist Hulk: “HULK SUPPORT QUEER AND FEMINIST CHALLENGES TO MARRIAGE AS INSTITUTION. HULK ALSO CHAMPION SAME-SEX MARRIAGE. HULK VAST, CONTAIN MULTITUDES.” But nonetheless, these are momentous ...

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Let Them Dance

by Paul Rapp April 4, 2013

When did the City of Albany become culturally moronic? Last December, Albany code enforcement shut down a burlesque show at the Lark Tavern, apparently based on a “tip” from some clean-up-the-neighborhood types. The reason? Well, ...

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A Kind of Blasphemy

by Jo Page April 4, 2013

On a recent cover of Yoga Journal I am promised many things: eight building blocks for practicing at home, six best foods to fuel my body, five poses to bring me into deep relaxation and ...

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More Than “Insensitive”

by Miriam Axel-Lute March 28, 2013

“We support the residents of Ida Yarbrough.” That was the central theme of the 50-person community response rally that gathered on the corner of Livingston Avenue and North Pearl Street on Tuesday evening. Many residents of ...

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Kitchen Envy

by Jo Page March 20, 2013

Watch carefully because I’m about accomplish this fancy, journalistic sleight of hand in which I start this column in a curmudgeonly vein and, by sheer dint of willpower, end up with a column that will ...

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Big Media Smackdown

by Paul Rapp March 20, 2013

I’m happy to report that the U.S. Supreme Court got something right. Some months ago, we talked here about a case before the court involving a Thai student who bought inexpensive English textbooks in Thailand ...

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What Is Safe Sleeping?

by Miriam Axel-Lute March 13, 2013

It was with great disappointment that I saw the new Albany County advertising campaign on “safe sleeping” for infants, which discourages bedsharing and repeats the old, inaccurate canard that “babies sleep safest alone.” There are few ...

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To Live

by Jo Page March 6, 2013

Writing in the Slate Book Review, Mark O’Connell ends his review of Adam Phillips’ book, Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life by saying “And so, while reading [the book], I spent a lot ...

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In the Public Interest

by Paul Rapp March 6, 2013

Maybe the most obscene trend of our lifetime is this mania about free markets. It’s part of the racist Tea Party dogma. It’s central to neocon dogma. It’s why we have a sequestration happening in ...

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Dear Labor, WTF?

by Miriam Axel-Lute February 28, 2013

To “Big Labor,” especially the AFL-CIO, from the diverse and rapidly growing climate change movement: So the past few years have been going pretty well for you and us, we thought. We got your back in ...

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Esperanza’s Boombox

by Paul Rapp February 21, 2013

A week or so ago I got a very agitato e-mail from the proprietor of one of those fine live music clubs in town. He’d just received a nastygram from a purported professional photographer hundreds ...

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Metamorphosis

by Jo Page February 20, 2013

Call it synergy, the turning of the ages, the leading of the Spirit, or just intuition, wishful thinking, odd timing, but I think something is happening to me that seems worth sharing—just in case the ...

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Ten Books To Blow Your Mind

by Miriam Axel-Lute February 13, 2013

It’s a good reading season, this six-more-weeks-of-winter-at-least time of year. So since I’m in the middle of a book that makes me repeatedly collar whoever is in the room with me to share the insights ...

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Baby Got Plagiarized

by Paul Rapp February 7, 2013

A bunch of people have asked me to write about this Jonathan Coulton/Glee thing, so here goes. Those of you who are over, say, 30, have probably never heard of Jonathan Coulton until now. The rest ...

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Stop Segregating the Rich

by Miriam Axel-Lute January 30, 2013

“Gentrification will reduce crime and violence—but only if poor people stay.” That’s the title of an interesting recent blog post on MetroTrends describing a move some urban researchers are making toward taking a public health approach ...

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Sing, Sing, Sing

by Paul Rapp January 24, 2013

The Internet is abuzz at the moment as to whether Beyonce lip-synched the national anthem at the inaugural. I watched it live and was stunned at the performance—it was understated and controlled, and when the ...

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Contemplation and Chocolate

by Jo Page January 23, 2013

I am one of the 12 people in the United States who has not seen Forrest Gump so I don’t know the context in which he claims that “life is like a box of chocolates. ...

Acceptable Victims

by Miriam Axel-Lute January 16, 2013

As we start to emerge from the horror of the Newtown school shootings, I keep finding myself returning to the other half of what I thought to say when I wrote about it back in ...

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