This is a trailer for a compelling new documentary about the Abstinence-Only Evangelical movement, directed by Cassie Jaye with Jaye Bird Productions. As her film description explains:

The politically conservative Evangelical community believes sex is meant to take place only within the context of marriage, and favors Abstinence-Only curriculum in the American educational system. Powerful Christian organizations along with $1.3 billion in federal funding have created Purity Balls, high-tech road shows and faith-based education curricula disputing safe sex practices.

In Bakersfield, California, police raid a woman’s house, banging on her doors and knocking in her windows as she videotapes them, repeatedly asking for a warrant, which they do not present.

For further insight into Bakersfield, here is a picture I took last week of their high school, where the mascot is an oil well. I am not making this up.  It’s like the high school founded back in the day in dust bowl California by the guy from There Will Be Blood.

Just posted on the venerable BradBlog, here is Brad Friedman’s keynote address at the Common Cause Media Reform Conference this past weekend at Occidental College in L.A. Brad is prominently featured in my election reform documentary FREE FOR ALL! as is Mark Crispin Miller, who wrote this about the importance of Brad’s speech:

It’s especially nice to see Brad there, as the media reform movement has paid little heed to the gigantic problem of election fraud and its non-coverage by the media: Free Press, for example, has staunchly–and inexplicably–refused to give that issue any prominence on the agenda at _its_ conferences.

Which is a shame, since, if this democracy has any chance of ever coming back, it will depend on our perceiving as inseparable these three essential issues:

media reform
election reform
campaign finance reform

FREE FOR ALL! hit the second item…

…stay tuned for PAY 2 PLAY to hit the third one.

Brad Friedman, Keynote Address at ‘L.A. Media Reform Summit’, 3/27/10 from Velvet Revolution on Vimeo.

There was a time when the violence in Hip Hop lyrics drew condemnation from, actually, a lot of the outraged moralists who seem drawn to Sarah Palin’s hypocritical spell.  Perhaps because she similarly mangles language with malevolence in such a visceral way.

On Saturday, Sarah Palin urged her supporters to “stop” cars with Obama stickers and confront them with her sarcastic cutsey catchphrase, “How’s that hopey-changey thing working out for you?” (Road rage encouraged at 3:30)

Sarah Palin has already defended her violent rhetoric lately accompanying the crosshairs on her Facebook page “targeting” Democratic Congressional candidates, and now she is basically telling her followers to self-righteously stop traffic and confront drivers of cars with Obama stickers on them—particularly a ‘Subaru’ for some reason?  Not VWs or Toyotas?  What an easy hipster target missed by the debutante demagogue.   And who can go by old bumper stickers on cars for accountability for anything?  I still see those sad Kerry/Edwards stickers on cars around town, and I think, “Why?”  (Although, admittedly, all those W stickers I used to see on the highways did go away fast.)

Karl Rove claims in his memoir to have been traumatized as a child by a mean Kennedy supporting-girl who knocked him over as a kid because of his sticker for Nixon, among 0ther assertions that challenge credulity.  Those shrill shrews at Code Pink should have been much more considerate in light of Karl Rove’s fear of girls (hmm) when they tried to perform a citizen’s arrest.

As asinine as these shenanigans may amount to, what matters is that clearly Karl cares, and is perennially unnerved by being called out.  To read his historical revisions and wishful talking points, it becomes apparent that Rove really does live a perpetual lie, constantly buttressing it with over explanation.  Look at him panic when that lady with the floppy pink sunhat waves her arm in a bingo-like fashion.

Rove went so far as to single out the independent investigative journalist (and, in disclosure, my friend) Jason Leopold at Truthout.org, founder of The Public Record, author of the gripping memoir News Junkie, and reporter who rode Rove’s ass through the Bush years.  Devoting a page of his life to a guy most people would not even know about? In a book about which conservative David Frum said you could do a history of the Bush White House based on what Rove left out in his memoir?  Rove has paid more tribute to Jason and his work than anyone else could.  Congratulations, Leopold!

If all political campaign ads contained the wit and meager budget of U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson’s ad here, not only would elections be decided less by extravagant media spending, they would be far more entertaining.  Here is a sitting Congressman’s viral video, which feels like a Poor Man’s Funny or Die, or a high-end MySpace outing.

(I just posted a pic yesterday from the same bookstore browse by Obama, but this is for completely different reasons.)

As observed by John Hodgman in his address at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner, President Obama is indeed the first modern Nerd President, as evidenced by his adulation of Superman, his propensity for personal gadgetry, and his choice in pants.  This photo of Obama at the register with a pop-up Star Wars book (money in hand) suggests that even if he did not buy this impressive pop-up volume and unwrap it immediately on board Air Force One—when he could be all by himself at last!—his scrutiny belies a know-it-all fan’s dubious inclinations: “Yeah, but is Boba Fett in this??”

“Oh, yeah, I hired some folks today, too.”

Thom Hartman speaks at a sold-out Demos forum on the Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, and the implications of corporate personhood on the U.S. Constitution.