The United States of Paranoia is witty, smart, and more than a little subversive. Ranging confidently through history and popular culture—from the Indian wars of Puritan New England to Andrew Jackson assassination conspiracy theory and the deconstructive tricksters behind Discordianism’s Operation Mindfuck, from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” to Jack Chick’s Evangelicalist comic books—Jesse […]

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(Richie Incognito, left, and Jonathan Martin | Source: press pool) I admit it. I’m fascinated by the Jonathan Martin/Richie Incognito controversy. At first, I was drawn in by Incognito’s name. Was it real or an amazing alias a la Carlos Danger? Since then, I’ve listened to speculation on what made the offensive tackle leave the Miami […]

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  June Shannon, better known as Mama June and mother of Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson, knows exactly how much everything costs. Couponing is a “serious obsession” and “like crack.” One episode shows Shannon pitching 14 Nesquick packets into her shopping cart in the Piggly-Wiggly, then doing some “quick math” on a mustard—89 cents per […]

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(Steven Beshear | Source: NBC) The biggest Obamacare-related media scandal of the moment is, of course, the fact that some people who buy individual insurance policies have been receiving cancellation letters. The implication is that when Obama assured people that they could keep their policies if they liked them, he wasn’t telling the truth. The […]

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  In A Dream Foreclosed, journalist and activist Laura Gottesdiener highlights four people threatened by the loss of their homes; discusses racism and predatory lending; and challenges old ideas about property and private housing. In the orgy of subprime lending that created the great recession, and the subsequent foreclosures and evictions that followed, African Americans […]

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