My friend and Texas Tech University professor Sam Bradley has recently added an interesting feature to his blog in which he poses five questions to someone of note. This week his interview was with Carolyn Bivens, the commissioner of the LPGA.
Definitely an interesting read, I encourage everyone to click here and read Sam's brief conversation with Ms. Bivens.
The controversy of Prop 8 in California is still in the forefront of the nation's mind. And there are those out there taking steps to get their message out.
The most recent is this star studded musical picking fun at the ideas behind Prop 8. Take a look and see what you think.
Since last week's election I've been struggling with the proposition results that took place in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, and in particular California. For those that do not know, Arkansas passed into law a ban on gay adoption while the other three states passed bans on gay marriage. How is it that hate can be written into state constitutions?
I am struggling with this because I truly do not understand the reasoning behind it. How is it that a gay couple getting married threatens the union of any straight couple? Is the argument a purely religious on or is it a decision based in hate? Or I guess it could be a decision coming from both.
I've heard the argument that gays and lesbians should not fight for the right to marry but rather settle for civil unions. In those states that have civil unions they do not typically carry the same rights as does a state recognized marriage. Even if civil unions did, then why the separate label? Again, I think it stems from this religious ideal of marriage being between a man and a woman. But not all straight couples marry in a church or is married by a member of clergy. Does the fact that their union is not directly connected to some form of religion make their marriage less valid? Maybe the solution is that those not joined together by clergy, either straight or gay, should be labeled a civil union and only those joined by clergy should be labeled as a marriage? But something tells me that many will not go for that change.
To say that some Americans in our society have a certain right while other Americans do not seems odd to me. With the country's history being as it was, how can we endorse any form of separate but equal?
I simply want a legitimate and logical reason for why I can not marry in the majority of the United States.
Here is a video from Keith Olbermann. Love him or hate him I think this video touches on this subject beautifully, and this should be required watching of everyone that supported Proposition 8 in California and the other anti-gay ballot measures across the country.
Even though it came out nearly ten months ago, the University of Delaware has decided to put out a press release about a study I co-authored with Samuel D. Bradley of Texas Tech University and Sungkyoung Lee of Indiana University about negative political advertising. The study was published in the Journal of Advertising with the title Psychophysiological and memory effects of negative political ads: Aversive, arousing and well remembered. I guess this was the right time to do it because I had an interview today with an online blogger/columnist for Newsweek.
I have actually enjoyed the recent advertising campaign put out by DirectTV. Actors from some of the best known recent films are seen as if they are actually in the film but then begin to talk to the screen about how they should have subscribed to DirectTV. I've liked this campaign and thought that it was an interesting concept.
That is until I saw the most recent advertisement.
The most recent one features actor Craig T. Nelson who played the father in the first two Poltergeist films. These are films that I enjoy and find myself watching anytime they are on TV or my TiVo records them. But this advertisement also features child actor Heather O'Rourke who died back in 1988. While DirectTV isn't the first company to featuring a dead celebrity in an advertising campaign, this still smacks (at least to me) of bad taste.
My friend and Texas Tech University professor Sam Bradley has recently added an interesting feature to his blog in which he poses five questions to someone of note. This week his interview was with Carolyn Bivens, the commissioner of the LPGA.
