United States election logos, 2008-1960.
posted on May 15, 2008 - View this thread

Worldwide disdain of Bush used to sell everything from newspapers to marmite to adhesive tape to cars to Scrabble, plus lots of advocacy ads for not-for-profit organizations.
posted on May 13, 2008 - View this thread

The pictures that horrified America - how comic books tipped 50s America into a moral panic.
posted on May 8, 2008 - View this thread

The Democratic Primary Season in 7 Minutes.
posted on May 6, 2008 - View this thread

The Rise of the Rest. Fareed Zakaria's Newsweek article about a "post-American" world.
posted on May 5, 2008 - View this thread

Want to live it up at the U.S. party conventions and get access to Senators and Congressmen? USA Today has posted the campaign committee price lists:
Democratic Senate and Congress
Republican Senate and Congress

If you've got the dough, you may conveniently request a convention package online from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The National Republican Congressional Committee and the NRSC have other price lists on their sites, but it seems like the DSCC and DCCC sites keep theirs under wraps.
posted on May 1, 2008 - View this thread

Listen my children and you shall hear, Of the midnight ride of Sybil Ludington - While most Americans have heard of Paul Revere, many have not heard of Sybil Ludington and her midnight ride. 231 years ago today, she rode 40 miles at night to warn the colonial militia that the British were burning Danbury, Connecticut.
posted on Apr 26, 2008 - View this thread

Do you remember those days when mom and dad used to pack you up in the back of the station wagon and drive you to grandma's and grandpa's? Or when you were a dreamer with nothing else on your mind but to escape from the one street town to the big city? Have you ever dreamed of going back, maybe to settle down, get in touch with your roots, and start a new life for yourself. Well, here's your chance. Why not just get up and do it this time. Sure, it's not going to be easy, but maybe it's the change you've been looking for. On the other hand, maybe not, so be advised. But whatever you decide, it sure does look like a way of life that does hold a lot of potential.
posted on Apr 11, 2008 - View this thread

If you hadn't heard of Jim Crow before, this is where you can find a brief history on the subject (along with a radio broadcast of some of the people who were involved). Bayard Rustin's Journey of Reconciliation: America's First Freedom Ride (You Don't Have To Ride "Jim Crow") was a precursor [audio and video] to the Civil Rights Movement of the 50's and 60's. (Also, a look at the Jim Crow Museum and a walk down Jim Crow Road today.) [previously*]
posted on Apr 2, 2008 - View this thread

A very special 'This American Life' about an administration with the endemic belief that laws only apply to the little people, and a limitless refusal to concede on even petty issues, no matter the costs. The highlight is about immigrant widows of US citizens (30:50). The program also discusses the constitutional beliefs of the presidential candidates.
posted on Apr 2, 2008 - View this thread

The Christian with Four Aces. Bill Sizemore writes about the infamous televangelist Pat Robertson.
posted on Apr 2, 2008 - View this thread

Something about the library inspires one to jump.
posted on Apr 1, 2008 - View this thread

America the Resilient.
posted on Mar 29, 2008 - View this thread

The Diner: A true American hallmark, that first appeared on the horizon in the early 70's (the 1870's that is), and has remained a fixture on the American psyche since. If you've never been to one, why not go ahead and have your next meal there? There maybe one right around the corner from where you live. If not, well, like me, you can sit back and look at the glorious images that are available and hope that one day your dream comes true. But until then: remember to adhere to the Ten Commandments, and yeah--if you can--get a copy of Diner (youtube) and watch it. It might not be "strictly" about Diners, but it's fun all the same. [previously]
posted on Mar 28, 2008 - View this thread

"These photographs of McClellan Street by David and Peter Turnley, taken in 1972-73, help us understand how America came to be the country that it is today." — John G. Morris
posted on Mar 15, 2008 - View this thread

Music has been used in American military prisons and on bases to induce sleep deprivation, "prolong capture shock," disorient detainees during interrogations—and also drown out screams. Based on a leaked interrogation log, news reports, and the accounts of soldiers and detainees, here are some of the songs that guards and interrogators chose.
posted on Feb 26, 2008 - View this thread

How many Presidents can you name?
posted on Feb 19, 2008 - View this thread

The Best Sandwiches in America Esquire magazine lists the very best examples of many very delicious sandwiches nationwide.
posted on Feb 12, 2008 - View this thread

Esalen: Where "California" Bubbled Up (one photo mildly NSFW) For many others in America and around the world, Esalen stands more vaguely for that metaphorical point where “East meets West” and is transformed into something uniquely and mystically American or New Agey. And for a great many others yet, Esalen is simply that notorious bagno-bordello where people had sex and got high throughout the 1960s and 1970s before coming home talking psychobabble and dangling crystals. In short, Esalen is in every way, even geologically, California at its most extreme. It is its caricature, as well as its noblest expression.
posted on Feb 11, 2008 - View this thread

African-American Snapshots & Portraits (page is slow to load) (previously) (via).
posted on Feb 4, 2008 - View this thread

Saddam's Confessions - Given Saddam Hussein's central place in the American Consciousness over the last couple decades and particularly in recent years, I found 60 minutes' interview with FBI interrogator George Piro pretty fascinating.
posted on Jan 27, 2008 - View this thread

America's debtor prisons.
posted on Jan 25, 2008 - View this thread

"The Emptied Prairie," a National Geographic article on North Dakota's ghost towns and the decline of the Great Plains. Typically amazing National Geographic photos here. Reminds me of a similar series that ran in the New York Times several years ago, which included this fascinating article by Timothy Egan.
posted on Jan 17, 2008 - View this thread

The Wire is dissent; it argues that our systems are no longer viable for the greater good of the most, that America is no longer operating as a utilitarian and democratic experiment. An already-quite-good discussion about The Wire, originating in Mark Bowden's Atlantic article ('The Angriest Man in Television') and continuing through Mark Bowden's post on the show's nihilistic bleakness gets even more interesting on Matt Yglesias's blog, where the creator of the show stops by to give his opinion on what it's all supposed to mean.
posted on Jan 3, 2008 - View this thread

Pictures from hitchhiking across America. {via}
posted on Nov 29, 2007 - View this thread

Excellent post over at BLDBLOG on the history of Bannerman's Arsenal, a ruined island castle in the middle of the Hudson river, created by a war profiteer who was at one time the world's largest arms dealer. Bonus points for the amazing accompanying photos by Shaun O'Boyle, whose site Modern Ruins has been featured on the blue previously.
posted on Nov 17, 2007 - View this thread

Bleed for Public Safety.
posted on Nov 12, 2007 - View this thread

Join the No Cussing Club™. Look at some people who don't cuss. Become one of them. Then buy a CD, a T-shirt, and a mood ring type color changer thing about hugs. But not before you learn the story behind it all.
posted on Oct 28, 2007 - View this thread

COW! ON! AMERICA! Cows have invaded America! Until the 1850s cows had invaded our families and now they want back in! They dominate our roadways! Who can escape their mystical dancing, their skills at running, their mastery of computers, and their lovely parades. They plot our destruction, corrupt our children with fan clubs and feed on the living. They even went global! When will the maddness end???
posted on Oct 24, 2007 - View this thread

Welcome to Guardian America "So what is Guardian America, what makes a British newspaper think that Americans will want to imbibe its view of America and the world, and why, having decided to undertake such an improbable project, would the paper place it in my hands? Fine questions. Let's explore."
posted on Oct 23, 2007 - View this thread

Kerouac's On The Road: The 50th Anniversary Of A Book I Had Not Read I can't be the only one whose impression of the book, from hearing about it but not actually reading it, was that it was about young, potent men, lost in a growing commercial society, two coiled springs ready to pop, looking for adventure-- America style. And this Road Trip that launched a thousand, other boring, useless road trips, was about young men looking to experience the world, really see, really live, really feel, free of the constraints of an artificial post war soulless society . . . That impression is wrong. You know what the book is really about? It's a primer on how to be a narcissist.
posted on Oct 18, 2007 - View this thread

Photographs of American Cities from the middle of the 20th Century.
posted on Sep 29, 2007 - View this thread

Parity - The Canadian Dollar is (almost) at equal value to the American Dollar for the first time since 1976.
posted on Sep 20, 2007 - View this thread

Lazy-Ass Nation. "Somewhere along the way, we fell in love with the dream of the effort-free existence."
posted on Sep 19, 2007 - View this thread

Ghetto Capitalists At once an outsider and a welcome participant in the ghetto economy, he found that he was suddenly part of “a vast, often invisible web” of economic exchange. That web supports the residents of Maquis Park and adds a strange sort of order to their existence, tempering chaos and adding predictability to the lives of Chicago’s poor. For the most part, the people he meets seem eager to trade. It’s just that much of what they’re trading isn’t going to meet with the approval of a law-and-order Republican or a bleeding-heart Great Society Democrat.
posted on Sep 14, 2007 - View this thread

Martin Amis on 9/11 and the cult of death:
posted on Sep 11, 2007 - View this thread

America ★ America ★ America ★ America ★ America ★ America ★ America, Fuck Yeah! ★ America the Beautiful ★ America's Funniest Home Videos ★ America's Got Talent ★ America's Most Wanted ★ America's Next Top Model ★ American Beauty ★ American Dad ★ American Express ★ American Gigolo ★ American Girl ★ American Gladiators ★ American Idol ★ American Idiot ★ American Inventor ★ American Life ★ American Pie ★ American Pie ★ American Psycho ★ American Psycho ★ American Tune ★ American Woman ★ An American Tail ★ An American Werewolf in London ★ Angels in America ★ Breakfast in America ★ Captain America ★ Coming to America ★ Good Morning America ★ I'm Afraid of Americans ★ Kids in America ★ Living in America ★ Living in America ★ Lost in America ★ Miss America ★ Once Upon a Time in America ★ Only in America ★ The All-American Rejects ★ The Greatest American Hero ★ The Justice League of America ★ This American Life ★ White America ★ (You Can Still) Rock in America ★ Young Americans ★
posted on Sep 11, 2007 - View this thread

The US Clean Air Act makes it illegal to sell highly environmentally-friendly cars in 42 states. Apparently.
posted on Sep 4, 2007 - View this thread

Going After Gore "Al Gore couldn't believe his eyes: as the 2000 election heated up, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other top news outlets kept going after him, with misquotes ("I invented the Internet"), distortions (that he lied about being the inspiration for Love Story), and strangely off-the-mark needling, while pundits such as Maureen Dowd appeared to be charmed by his rival, George W. Bush. For the first time, Gore and his family talk about the effect of the press attacks on his campaign—and about his future plans—to the author, who finds that many in the media are re-assessing their 2000 coverage."
posted on Sep 4, 2007 - View this thread

Please Columbia Don't Kill My Wife
posted on Sep 3, 2007 - View this thread

Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal by Joel Salatin. This Saturday will mark this article's four year anniversary. Frankly, I was mildly surprised not to have found it mentioned before in MeFi. It's a good read about a sad state of affairs; how our government is turning its own people into outlaws, because freedom has been traded in for an illusion of security. ...but then we already knew that. Don't we?
posted on Aug 29, 2007 - View this thread

Radar picks the worst colleges in America. At least one of the picks is rather dubious, although I suppose being the "worst" Ivy League is a position of some note, and another one of the picks was where my school's valedictorian went. Either way, it's always nice to see the Moonies somersaulting into otherwise non-Moonie related stories.
posted on Aug 27, 2007 - View this thread

American Rhetoric :: an online archive
posted on Aug 22, 2007 - View this thread

Clinton White House Spokesman Joe Lockhart does stand-up. Text, or if you prefer there is some audio at the 51min mark from This American Life.
posted on Aug 17, 2007 - View this thread

This map displays county-to-county migration data for 2000-2005 from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. In, out, staying put, median household income. [via]
posted on Aug 16, 2007 - View this thread

La Vida de Vagabundos Americanos. Images of America's young homeless from the excellent Polaroid Photography Collective, featured before.
posted on Aug 13, 2007 - View this thread

Knob Creek Gun Range , a former military-munitions test range situated near Fort Knox is home to the "World's Largest Machine Gun Shoot and Military Gun Show". Run by private citizens excercising their second amendment rights (Kentucky has no state-level gun laws) the focus is on Class III firearms - things like assault weapons and anti-tank rifles, but also the occasional high-caliber sniper rifle and cannon. Hold my bourbon and watch this! (more)
posted on Jul 26, 2007 - View this thread

"Americans need to educate themselves, from elementary school onward, about what their country has done abroad. And they need to play a more active role in ensuring that what the United States does abroad is not merely in keeping with a foreign policy elite's sense of realpolitik but also with the American public's own sense of American values. Because at their core, those values are sound. That is why, even in places where you'll find virulent anti-Americanism, you'll also find enormous affection for things American." An article by Mohsin Hamid, author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist
posted on Jul 23, 2007 - View this thread

Why not celebrate our Independence Day with the violent overthrow of the government? Some say they want a revolution, others would rather secede. Should we stay or should we go?
posted on Jul 4, 2007 - View this thread

Comanche: The Horse that Survived the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
posted on Jul 4, 2007 - View this thread