Friday Playlist//Tegan & Sara

Mood Board

Agreed//

In an earlier piece, I wrote that the primary reason for abject child poverty in these Southern states is that more than a third of children have parents who lack secure employment, decent wages and healthcare. But thanks to religion, these poor saps vote for the party that rejects Medicaid expansion, opposes early education expansion, legislates larger cuts to education, and slashes food stamps to make room for oil and agriculture subsidies on top of tax cuts and loopholes for corporations and the wealthy. Essentially, the Republican Party has convinced tens of millions of Southerners that a vote for a public display of the Ten Commandments is more important to a Christians’ needs than a vote against cuts in education spending, food stamp reductions, the elimination of school lunches and the abolition of healthcare programs.

Isn’t it time to save the South from itself, and/or to save America from the South? These studies and the current political zeitgeist remind us that it’s the religious South that continues to hold the country in some kind of 1860s time warp. While the more secular America is trying to deal intelligently with real problems — taxes, spending, environment, healthcare, education, inequality, and poverty – the South is rooted in religious fanaticism, ancient grudges and demagoguery.

Gina Glover//Melt//Deeptime

www.ginaglover.com

Selux//Manta Rhei

Randy Scott Slavin//Miami

Lykke Li//Jerome

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Go Lena//

Lena Dunham, creator of HBO’s thirty-minute hit series “Girls,” offered her thoughts about women in entertainment during her keynote lecture at SXSW on Monday. Dunham noted that there’s been a huge gap between opportunities available for Adam Driver, a male co-star on the show, and their three female co-stars, who are often typecast.

“Our male lead, Adam Driver, has had a bang-up year in movies which could not be more deserved because he’s a ferocious genius with an incredible work ethic, and I’ve learned so much from him. But the girls are still waiting patiently for parts that are going to honor their intelligence and their ability,” she said.

Adding that “the world is ready to see Adam as a million different men,” Dunham observed that no one is interested in seeing the range of actresses Allison Williams, Zosia Mamet and Jemima Kirke. “Allison is relegated to all-American sweetheart. Zosia is asked to play more flighty nudnicks,” Dunham said.

“This is not a knock on Adam’s talent,” the writer and actress explained, “which is utterly boundless and he’s exactly the actor who should be doing all this. It’s a knock on a world where women are typecast and men can play villains, Lotharios and nerds in one calendar year and something has to change and I’m trying.”

via salon.com

Moloko//Forever More

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So Over It//Oscars