For years, there’s been a fair amount of carping about the so-called “culture wars” in America without much explanation as to the parties involved or what was at stake. For the layperson, it was pretty easy to break it down to a battle between “smart” and “stupid” and while no one seemed to stand up for the stupid side, the seemingly one-sided brawl somehow still raged on. The fact is that over the past decade and change the sabers have been rattling, the pistol magazines have been loaded with hollow point rounds, and the brass knuckles have been sized and fitted for a real fight. After years of “Wolf!” being cried, the culture wars are upon us.

This week will be remembered as the week people got their excuse to not give a damn about global warming. Emails have leaked worldwide that suggest that some of the numbers on climate change have been juked. Now all the people who were too lazy to push their countries to do anything real about the situation can now view their cowardice as clairvoyance.
Bull.
Predictions are predictions. No matter what the field of science, there’s no way to determine exactly when or how most phenomena will occur. What we do know is …

“We are all our own Devil…and we make this world our Hell.”
I know I’m very late to the party, but Chicago’s own Company of Thieves has become an instant favorite. Just watched this Rushmore-inspired clip for their track “Oscar Wilde” and it reminds me of so many things I miss about the best 90s pop-rock: nuance, dynamics, and melodies at each point in the arrangement that burrow into your ear and refuse to leave.
Don’t believe me? Check out the video for “Oscar Wilde” and decide for yourself.

With the influx of political information and disinformation from so many sources, are we losing our cohesion as a collective by choosing sides?

Ian Huffman joins the IMARS team with a thought-provoking essay on the political and social polarization of not only the American government, but American Citizen, recalling the historical lesson of Germany’s Dolchstosslegende.

Provocateur and weight loss poster boy Michael Moore is back with a new film on the Wall Street bailout.

I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of being sick.
As our country enters this national argument (if you can call it that) over a proposed healthcare package, we’re once again showing the world just how misinformed and gleefully ignorant we as the American people can be at times. In truth, there are town hall meetings (who the hell has a town hall anymore?) in which neighbors are berating the daylights out of each other over an idea that has not even been completely written down yet.
That should be disconcerting …

It has been said before and will be said many more  times to come, but for us “80s Babies”, John Hughes got it with a depth that we didn’t think adults possessed. With “Sixteen Candles” and “The Breakfast Club”, he opened the American Teenager’s diary to the world and showed us to be full-fledged human beings with our own social castes and fears and triumphs that most of our parents didn’t have the time (or maybe the eyes) to see. He understood the stuff our fantasies were made of and …

All sorts of things that we were ga-ga over the past few years, including the incredibly talented soccer teen, Freddy Adu?

Americans love it when the citizens of other countries hit the streets for injustice. We were teary eyed with emotion during the Solidarity movement in Poland, and giddy when the wall came down in East Germany. As the fury in Iran has escalated, we’ve watched and admired the Iranians demanding their government recognize the will of it’s people. Armchair revolutionaries cheering in a wave of patriotism by proxy.
How is it then that, when 62% of US bankruptcies are due to medical bills, Americans are not hitting the streets and demanding …

I know, I know.  I know that things have been a little slow here at IMARS and I promise that it will be resolved in the next couple of weeks.  We’ll have much more content, news, interviews…pretty much the whole kit-and-kaboodle that the site was built on in the first place.
Quick wrap-up of recent “news” on the blogosphere:
- Kanye West was a real champ, taking it on the chin from the South Park guys last week.  His blog post regarding the episode was pretty cool.  Maybe it’ll change some people’s …